AJ McLean Says Backstreet Boys 'Blindsided' by Former Manager Lou Pearlman Being Band's 'Sixth Member'

Netflix's 'Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam' docuseries reveals how Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC’s former manager made himself a sixth member of both bands without their knowledge

• Netflix's Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam details how the former manager of Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC made himself a member of the bands without their knowledge

• The docuseries notes that Lou Pearlman made himself a sixth member because he funded both groups

• He was later sued by both bands in the late '90s

AJ McLean is opening up about how his boy band was exploited by former manager Lou Pearlman in their heyday.

The Backstreet Boys singer, 46, appears in Netflix’s Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam, a three-part docuseries that chronicles the rise and fall of Pearlman, creator of Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. He rose to prominence in the early ‘90s thanks to his reputation for launching successful music groups but was later exposed as a con man running a fraudulent investment scheme.

Related: *NSYNC's Chris Kirkpatrick Says Former Manager Lou Pearlman 'Always' Asked Him to Keep Band a Secret 'in the Beginning'

According to the documentary, the talent manager financed Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC as they rose to fame, which eventually caused problems when the groups realized they weren’t getting their fair share of profits made off of their records and touring.

“You’re estimated to have earned $200 million. How much of that have you seen?” a reporter asks the Backstreet Boys in Dirty Pop, per throwback footage from a 1998 MTV interview. Bandmate Howie Dorough replies, “We haven’t seen anything near that.”

In the documentary, attorney Cheney Mason — the defense lawyer who represented Pearlman in his lawsuits with *NSYNC and Backstreet Boys before quitting over unpaid legal fees — notes that the bands believed Pearlman “was cheating them” out of profits and confirms that the talent manager did, indeed, make himself a sixth member of both acts (without their knowledge) because he funded them.

“And so he was entitled to rewards for what he did in the creation of the group,” Mason added. “Whether they like it or not, those are the undisputed facts.”

Related: Who Was Lou Pearlman? All About the Con Man Behind Your Favorite Boy Bands

“We were blindsided to Lou being the sixth member of the group,” McLean, 46, admits earlier in the doc. “You know, you’re gonna make your management commission, but you’re also gonna make exactly how much the five of us make, and you’re not out there doing what we’re doing.”

*NSYNC member Chris Kirkpatrick expressed equal shock about his band’s additional member, saying, “The most trusted person in our circle was a crook.”

In 1998, Backstreet Boys sued Pearlman claiming they had only earned $300,000 since 1993 while he pocketed $10 million, per Forbes. The following year, *NSYNC followed suit with their own lawsuit to get out of their original contract with Pearlman’s record company, Trans Continental Records. Tampa Bay Times reported that the two parties settled out of court, with *NSYNC keeping their name while changing record companies.

After both lawsuits, Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC severed ties with Pearlman and found new management as they continued their careers. Pearlman, meanwhile, found himself in more legal trouble years later after he was discovered to be running one of the largest and longest-running Ponzi schemes in American history.

Related: Lance Bass Remembers Losing Money after *NSYNC: 'You're Not Thinking Business When You're Starting at 16'

In 2008, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing more than $300 million from investors. However, according to The New York Times, the manager died of cardiac arrest in 2016, in the Miami area where he was serving out his sentence at a federal prison. Dirty Pop reveals that no one contacted the crooner to claim Pearlman’s body following his death and only five people attended his funeral. Afterward, he was buried in an unmarked grave.

“I think we should remember Lou as a crook who got what he deserved in the end,” Kirkpatrick, 52, concludes in the doc, “and there are people that are still in pain and hurting because of his actions.”

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.