Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and New Version members are exposing the darkish facet of being a part of the world’s greatest boybands. NSYNC alum Lance Bass, New Version’s Michael Bivins, Backstreet Boys member AJ McLean, and others weighed in on the “loopy” guidelines they needed to observe to take care of their pristine picture.
“You must keep in mind with boybands, it’s a household viewers,” Bass mentioned within the new Paramount+ documentary, Bigger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands. “And, due to that, there have been some loopy boyband guidelines,” his former bandmate Chris Kirkpatrick added.
In line with Bass, the report label administration would warn them towards doing one thing typically utilizing references to members of different teams, like New Children [on the Block]’s Donnie [Wahlberg] did this, hinting that it shouldn’t be repeated. “And so that you knew you had been being instructed not to do that,” Bass recalled.
To take care of their picture, the members had been forbidden to bask in ingesting or smoking cigarettes even once they had been backstage. There have been different pointless prohibitions, such because the prohibition that one cannot experience a bike, which Kirkpatrick gladly broke. “No person can experience bikes. Growth! I purchased a bike and introduced it on tour with me,” he recalled.
Nevertheless, the foundations didn’t finish there as a result of Bivins claimed within the documentary that restrictions weren’t restricted to morality or their musical performances however physicality as properly. “They’d say, ‘Hey! Shave your mustache. Maintain on to your youth,’” he recalled. “We are able to’t be Fatstreet. That isn’t cute,” Backstreet Boys alum McLean added.
Bivins unveiled one other irrational rule that boyband members needed to observe: the “no girlfriend” rule as a result of it might break followers’ illusions and snatch away their goals. The documentary, helmed by Tamra Davis, chronicles the historical past of boybands and their loopy fandoms. Along with those talked about earlier than, the boybands talked about within the movie embrace the Jonas Brothers, One Path, Jackson 5, and The Beatles.
The documentary will function stars like Bass, Kirkpatrick, McLean, Bivins, Donny Osmond of The Osmonds, Nick Lachey of 98 Levels, the Hanson brothers, and Vernon and Hoshi of Seventeen. Bigger Than Life is streaming now on Paramount+.