Via the New York Post, we learn that the architect of several famous boy bands, Lou Pearlman, has allegedly taken something more than a professional interest in the talent he’s, er, mentored, over the years. He’s currently in federal custody on other charges related to a ponzi scheme, wherein he scammed more than one thousand investors of more than $315 million. According to Wikipedia,
After being on the run since December 2006, Pearlman was finally arrested in Indonesia on June 14, 2007 after being spotted by a German tourist couple. Pearlman was then indicted by a federal grand jury on June 27, 2007.
I wonder what he may have been up to in Indonesia? But now, according to the New York Post, there’s even more news (emphasis in the original):
October 2, 2007 — LOU Pearlman – the hog-fat, boy-band honcho who created *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys and launched the careers of Justin Timberlake and Nick Carter – was a pervy pedophile who preyed on the young men he mentored, Vanity Fair reports.
“I would absolutely say the guy was a sexual predator. All the talent knew what Lou’s game was,” Steve Mooney, an aspiring singer who was Pearlman’s assistant, told VF’s Bryan Burrough. “Some guys joked about it. I remember asking me, ‘Have you let Lou you yet?’ ”
Mooney said he once asked Pearlman, who was known as “Big Poppa,” what it would take for him to get into a band. “I’ll never forget this as long as I live. He leaned back in his chair, in his white terry cloth robe and white underwear, and spread his legs,” Mooney told Burrough. “And then he said, and these were his exact words, ‘You’re a smart boy. Figure it out.’ ” Mooney added that a singer groped by Pearlman told him, “Look, if a guy wants to massage me, and I’m getting a million dollars for it, you just go along with it. It’s the price you got to pay.”
Phoenix Stone, an early member of the Backstreet Boys, tells Vanity Fair Pearlman was “definitely inappropriate” with Nick Carter. Nick’s mom, Jane Carter, wouldn’t get into specifics, but said, “Certain things happened and it almost destroyed our family. I tried to warn everyone. I tried to warn all the mothers . . . I tried to expose him for what he was years ago.”
Tim Christofore, a member of Take 5, recalls that during a sleepover at Pearlman’s house, the music czar swan-dived onto his and another boy’s bed and wrestled with them wearing only in a towel, which came off. “We were like, ‘Ooh, Lou, that’s gross.’ What did I know? I was 13,” Christofore told Vanity Fair.
Rich Cronin, lead singer of LFO, recalled Pearlman told him of an “ancient massage technique that if I massage you and we bond in a certain way, it will strengthen your aura.”
Um, say it with me. . . EEEEEWWWWWW!!!!!
– Huffington Post