In 2006, a few years after the group went on hiatus, *NSYNC's Lance Bass came out as gay, and he recently told a podcast that his decision led to him losing work in the TV industry.
Appearing on the Politickin podcast, Lance says that around the time he came out, he'd landed a role in a TV pilot, but then the deal fell apart because of his sexuality. In fact, he called his decision a "career killer."
"I had a sitcom with The CW at the time, and we were about to shoot the pilot and this came out and they were like, 'We can't do the show anymore. Like, they have to believe that you're straight to play a straight character,'" Lance told hosts Gavin Newsom and Doug Hendrickson.
He added, “Every casting director I knew, they’re like, ‘Lance, we can’t cast you ... you’re too famous for being gay now that they can’t look at you as anything other than that.’ So, I lost everything.”
Lance says these days he prefers to take on projects where he's the boss and nobody can say "no" to him. But he can't be the boss of the much-discussed *NSYNC reunion — everyone needs to be on board for that.
"There's definitely something in the air that we're trying to figure out," said Lance. "Justin's on tour for the next six months, so obviously there's nothing we can do until that's done, but we're definitely discussing what the future could hold ... fingers crossed, we give the fans a lil' somethin' somethin'."