The NSYNC member didn’t want his ID docuseries to just focus on disgraced manager and convicted con artist Lou Pearlman.

Why Joey Fatone’s Boy Band Confidential is ‘the Pulp Fiction of a documentary’

The NSYNC member didn't want his ID docuseries to just focus on disgraced manager and convicted con artist Lou Pearlman.

Joyce Eng

Joyce Eng is a senior news editor at ** with nearly 20 years of experience in entertainment journalism. She previously worked at OK!, TV Guide, and Gold Derby.

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April 8, 2026 9:00 a.m. ET

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Joey Fatone. Credit:

Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty

There has been no shortage of documentaries about the '90s boy band boom in recent years. The latest is ID's docuseries *Boy Band Confidential*, hailing from executive producer and NSYNC member Joey Fatone. It may not be the first boy band doc, but it's a project the singer has long wanted to do.

"You start to see all these documentaries, I've seen them, I've done them — VH1 *Driven*. You did all these things and you go, 'Why is everybody else doing this?'" Fatone tells **. "And sometimes they like to change the storyline or that's not the way I said it, or that's not the way I did it. So literally that's what it was. It was, 'You know what? Let's tell our story and let these other guys tell their own story.'"

The two-part series, airing on April 13 and 14, explores the turn-of-the-millennium phenomenon and the ugly side of superstardom, from the pressure to remain picture-perfect and unspoken inner demons to alleged abuse and exploitation. Those interviewed include Fatone's bandmate Lance Bass, Backstreet Boys' AJ McLean, 98 Degrees' Nick Lachey and Jeff Timmons, O-Town's Erik-Michael Estrada and former member Ashley Parker Angel, LFO's Brad Fischetti, and Boyz II Men's Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman. Oh, and OG NSYNC member Jason Galasso, who quit and was replaced by Bass.

"It's been a minute," Fatone says of when he last talked to Galasso. "We've always been, like, phone-tagging every once in a while."

Fatone, who is coming off a 2025 stint in Broadway’s *& Juliet*, was present for all of the interviews, whether in person or on the phone, and believes having a "camaraderie" with the guys and similar experiences allowed them to be more candid. While their rivalries were played up in their heyday, the guys are all friends and frequently collaborate together now.

"We all have the same kind of stories though. Just like even in the workforce, things can happen in HR," the singer says. "So for me, I always wanted to get those stories out and to really have them tell their stories and not manipulate, not try to go into depth in the sense of, if you don't wanna go into depth, this is what your story is, let's hear it. And believe it or not, you'd see them open up."

NSYNC receiving their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2018.

Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

Past docs, including Netflix's *Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam* and YouTube's *The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story*, the latter of which was produced by Bass, centered on Lou Pearlman, the disgraced boy band impresario who was convicted in 2008 of running a decades-long Ponzi scheme and died in prison in 2016 at 62 while serving a 25-year sentence. Long before his conviction, BSB and NSYNC, Pearlman’s biggest successes, sued him after they discovered their contracts made him a "sixth member" of each band and they claimed they weren't receiving their fair share of profits. Both bands settled out of court and broke away from Pearlman.

Fatone and his manager and fellow EP Joe Mulvihill, who was NSYNC's assistant back in the day, didn't want Pearlman to take up all the oxygen in *Boy Band Confidential*.

"It was always Lou, Lou, Lou, Lou. Okay, we get that," Fatone says. "He was the common denominator, but there were other groups out there that got screwed over by other people, not just Lou. But again, you look at it, and Lou is the big formula for Backstreet, NSYNC, O-Town, Take That. I mean, you name it. He did that for me. So it is hard not to talk about him, but again, it's not just him."

He points to Fischetti, who opens up about the deaths of bandmates Rich Cronin and Devin Lima, and ex-LFO member Brian Gillis. "His friends and peers were passing and dying because of completely other things," Fatone notes.

Adds Mulvihill, "You got a story about this, you got a story about that, and you get a story about this, and that's what we feel we're the most proud of. We feel like this is the *Pulp Fiction* of a documentary. It's kind of all over the place, but it has a through line of human behavior, what everybody goes through, how they feel."

While Pearlman isn't the focal point of *Boy Band Confidential*, he takes center stage during a stretch covering alleged grooming and predatory behavior by those in power.

Steve Mooney, Pearlman's former live-in assistant, recounts a story he told *Vanity Fair* in 2007: Pearlman — who had promised Mooney a spot in O-Town, which was being formed via ABC's *Making the Band* — disrobed and said, "You're a smart boy. Figure it out," when Mooney asked one night what he had to do to get in O-Town. Mooney said he refused and was cut from *Making the Band* the next day.

NSYNC with Lou Pearlman in the '90s.

Mark Weiss/WireImage

"There was a lot of very inappropriate sexual circumstances that we found ourselves in with Lou, kinda just chipping away at you to kinda lower your guard," Angel says in the doc. The singer goes on to retell one of the several accusations Cronin, who died in 2010 at 36 from leukemia, made against Pearlman on *The Howard Stern Show* in 2009.

Pearlman was never charged in connection with any sexual misconduct or abuse and denied all allegations up to his death.

"I think, for them, it's very therapeutic, but also it's literally just a one-on-one. It's me and my boys just talking, shooting the s---, so to speak, let's be real about what's going on. And things were just coming out," Fatone says. "Things were just flying. You go, 'Holy cow, I didn't know about that. Oh, wow. I didn't know how you felt about that.' You really felt 'wow.' And it's mind-blowing on some of the stories, you know? Some things, of course, we knew and then some things I'm like, I didn't."

Mulvihill says they made it clear to their subjects they weren't going to "twist their words" or "create a narrative."

"We were just gonna try to tell a story that we feel like benefits everybody," he continues. "Even when you're at your height — and you saw the one gentleman go through his schedule. It was like performance, performance, right? Like there was no life. This became their life. And then when that stops, you have to figure things out, or even [when it] slows down, you have to figure things out. And that's really hard. There's not a lot of people that live the life that they lived. And I felt like it was important to tell that story, but tell it in their words and give not only fans, but even if you're a non-fan, something to watch and maybe take some of that into your own life, and maybe try to balance some of the other things that you're going through in your own life."

The docuseries does end on a positive note. With '90s nostalgia hotter than ever, boy bands have been experiencing a "rebirth," as Mulvihill dubs it. Between NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye" getting a prime showcase in *Deadpool & Wolverine*, BSB crushing it at Sphere, and the ongoing Pop 2000 Tour featuring NSYNC's Chris Kirkpatrick, O-Town, and LFO, among other things, there's a deeper appreciation for boy bands than ever before — a confirmation of sorts that they'll always be tearing up our hearts.

"There was a lot of people growing up with them. So here we are — 40 to 50 years old, 35 to 55 years old. You're pretty much in your career. You have some money to spend. You wanna spend it on things that make you feel good," Mulvihill says. "This story is bigger than just each individual. It's a time period, it's a human touching period, [and] you feel good. Like you saw, you remember the stories, you felt good. That's a good thing."

"When you're young, you don't ever think that you're gonna become nostalgic. You never think you're gonna become old school," Fatone, 49, quips. "I think '90s and 2000-ish is just becoming hot again [and] it is bizarre to watch all this, but it's really cool. Why not take advantage of it in the sense of love it, relive it, and have fun with it? If NSYNC never does anything again, if they never tour ever again as far as a group, guess what? You might see me and Lance do something together. You gonna see me and AJ, you might see me and Chris, you might just see me just do stuff. I'm gonna keep living that NSYNC legacy [in the] sense of the music because it was great music. I love performing and I'm gonna keep performing."

*Boy Band Confidential* airs Monday, April 13 and Tuesday, April 14 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ID. Episodes will also stream on HBO Max.

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Source: “EW Documentary”