October 03, 2007

Lou Pearlman Made Sexual Advances To His Boybands

By MTV.com

According to an article in the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair magazine, financial improprieties aren't the only secret disgraced boy-band mogul Lou Pearlman may have been hiding.

Interviews with Pearlman's former associates allege that the man behind the careers of 'NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys and LFO made advances toward a number of the young men he shepherded to fame.

Speaking to former Pearlman protégés and their parents, the article relates stories of young singers emerging from Pearlman's room late at night, buttoning their pants and joking with each other about whether Pearlman had performed a particular sex act on them, with one former assistant referring to the man who enjoyed the nickname "Big Poppa" as a "sexual predator."

According to the article, Pearlman - currently in jail and accused of embezzling more than $300 million from investors - acted inappropriately with members of the BSB to the point where several of the bandmembers' mothers suspected "there might have been some strange things going on."

In another alleged incident, an aspiring singer was summoned to Pearlman's Miami mansion in the middle of the night to take out the garbage, and when he asked what he needed to do to get into the band, he said, "[Pearlman] leaned back in his chair, in his white terry-cloth robe and white underwear, and spread his legs. And then he said, and these were his exact words, 'You're a smart boy. Figure it out.'"

The November issue of Vanity Fair will be on newsstands October 9.