
The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story
Lou Pearlman built the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC out of an Orlando warehouse, then ran one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history behind the same office doors. Lance Bass, who lived through Pearlman's management contracts as an *NSYNC member, produces and narrates, gathering testimony from Backstreet Boys' AJ McLean and Nick Carter, former Pearlman employees, and the journalists and federal investigators who eventually took him down. Home video, tour footage, and financial documents trace how Pearlman skimmed millions from the acts he discovered while telling investors their money sat in airlines and blimp companies that barely existed. The film follows the paper trail from his early days chartering planes through the boy band gold rush to the 2008 fraud conviction that sent him to prison, where he died before serving out his sentence. What comes through clearest is how the same charm that sold teenagers on five-part harmonies also sold banks and retirees on a fortune that was never there.