American business man Lou Pearlman created some of the biggest boy bands in the 1990s, including NSYNC, The Backstreet Boys, O Town, and LFO to name a few. Lou even called himself the 6th Backstreet Boy. These bands were performing to sold out concerts while selling merch and hundreds of millions of albums to screaming fans around the world.

It was estimated that Lou Pearlman's peak net worth was $300 million during the boy band craze era in the 1990s and early 2000s. So how did Lou end up $300 million dollars in debt in 2006 and sentenced to 25 years of prison in 2008? Find out this and lots of other random boy band trivia today on the Controversial Figures Podcast.

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Episode Sources:

ABC News. The Hitman: From Pop to Prison The Hitman: From Pop to Prison l 20/20 l PART 1
Vanity Fair. Mad About the Boys https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/11/pearlman200711
Wikipedia Bye Bye Bye https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye_Bye_Bye
Wikipedia *NSYNC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSYNC
Wikipedia Photo Mill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_mill
Wikipedia The Backstreet Boys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backstreet_Boys
Wikipedia Lou Pearlman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Pearlman
Music: The 6 is Silent by Skyjelly

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