Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam (2024) s01e02 Episode Script
Business Is Business
1
[whistling]
[intriguing music playing]
I'm not sure if
I was at that party per se.
Back in the day, Lou and I,
we used to fly to Atlantic City,
down to the casinos,
and Lou used to take the airline tickets
and somehow change it,
and we used to get on flights for free.
[interviewer] Did Lou forge any documents
for his companies?
I've never seen him forge any documents.
Uh, maybe embellish, but not forge.
I used to work for Goodyear.
And that's what gave me some of the ideas
to go ahead
and get into the blimp business.
Jordache people decided to top
everything they have done so far,
so they rented a huge blimp.
It all started at Lakehurst with Jordache.
[reporter 1] It crashed this morning
on its maiden flight.
It was up for about two minutes,
and then it crashed.
[reporter 2] It would have been bound
for Battery Park City.
The Jordache folks
were showing their fall line there.
Disappointed spectators had
a few words of advice for Jordache.
Uh, yeah, I think
they should stick with jeans.
[Melissa] It was almost a joke,
kind of behind Lou's back,
of people talking about
how all the blimps crashed.
One crashed,
and then in a very short period of time,
the others followed.
[Marc] MetLife and Shamu and McDonald's.
Yeah, hmm.
All the blimps crashed at the same time.
That's kind of weird.
Well, it was insured.
I have heard
insurance money came out of it.
We didn't only raise money once
on Airship.
Like every company,
they burn through cash,
and you raise more money.
People loved Lou.
He was a good salesperson.
We have a lot of top-secret maneuvers
that we're gonna be performing
when this race is occurring.
[Marc] One night, when I was a driver
for him in New York,
we were in downtown Manhattan.
He goes, "Stop here."
So I pull over to Citibank.
Goes down the block, he says,
"Stop here." It's another Citibank.
And I have to stop at 30 Citibanks
on the way home.
Do I know what was going on?
Absolutely not.
He was moving all his money
to somewhere, who knows.
[interviewer]
What came shortly thereafter?
Um, his move to Florida.
You got to remember.
With Lou, there wasn't one story
that we all had.
We all had a different Lou.
So my story was
The blimps crashed.
We're starting a boy band.
[chuckles]
[eerie music playing]
[eerie music ends]
[Lou] I consider the people who work
for Trans Continental's companies
to be family.
When I first learned of the allegations
coming from the Backstreet Boys' lawyers,
I felt like a father whose kids
had moved out of the house
and fallen into bad company.
But I've come to realize
that even the closest families
have their squabbles and disagreements.
[news intro plays]
[reporter 1]
While the Backstreet Boys continue
on a seemingly normal rock star schedule,
they and their management are
embroiled in a host of lawsuits.
You're estimated to have earned
200 million dollars.
[Howie] We heard.
How much of that have you seen?
We haven't seen anywhere near that.
[reporter 2] Backstreet Boys
sued Big Poppa,
claiming that he'd pocketed
43% of the band's profits.
And NSYNC,
Trans Con's second biggest act,
just hired a team of lawyers
to help them try to get out
of their original Trans Con contract.
[interviewer] It wouldn't appear to be
a big happy family right now.
It depends on how you look at it.
If you're inside the family,
you understand what's going on.
I felt like a puppet.
Like, I'm doing
what this guy tells me to do,
and I didn't know why.
The most trusted person
in our circle was a crook.
We were blindsided to, you know,
Lou being the sixth member of the group.
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.
[dramatic music playing]
[man] The Backstreet Boys
and NSYNC believed
that Lou Pearlman was cheating them.
Mr. Pearlman wanted
a higher-profile lawyer to represent him,
and I was involved in defending
Casey Anthony for about two years.
There is no evidence of that.
You can't even guess that far.
The bottom line was
that Lou made himself the sixth member
of the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC.
Here I am with the Backstreet Boys.
And so he was entitled to rewards
for what he did
in the creation of the group.
Lou spent a lot of money
training these kids.
He created the Backstreet Boys,
and he created NSYNC.
Whether they like it or not,
those are the undisputed facts.
[Lou] The kids should take a step back
and say, "Who took the risk?"
"Who put up all the money?
Who's my real Big Poppa?"
[reporter 1] As settlement talks
with NSYNC continue,
fans have formed a prayer circle
outside of the courthouse.
Please be with them today in the court,
and please make them
really come out victorious.
We need to look after NSYNC
and what we need to go to the next level.
If it's not with Trans Con,
then it's not with them.
- Hey, but does that make you ungrateful?
- [Lance] No.
Because Trans Con was there
when you guys were nobody.
Yeah, but Trans Con
has definitely been compensated.
You know, so, you're out of my life.
Goodbye. See you.
[reporter 2]
The Backstreet Boys have severed ties
with Pearlman's company Trans Continental
and found other management.
[AJ] The ten of us, us and NSYNC,
we did buy Lou out.
A settlement was the easiest way
to get out.
[interviewer] Do you remember
what you bought him out for?
It was a decent amount.
[dramatic music playing]
[Cheney] The amount we settled on
that Lou was entitled to collect
was, like, about 64 million dollars.
[Lou] Well, first of all, I'd like to say
that all of our agreements
with our artists are very fair.
I'm still earning, uh, dollars from
their record sales to this day,
and certainly we've had agreements,
though they're confidential.
Lou and Trans Con ultimately ended
their contractual obligations
with Backstreet and NSYNC,
but there was a deal that was made,
and Lou would still remain a sixth member.
Sometimes you find that when
an artist goes their own direction,
they don't do as well
as when we guided them.
Bullshit.
That's a fucking joke.
Except for Justin Timberlake. [laughs]
I can say that all of our artists
who have followed our direction
have been very big and very successful.
But as they go solo,
who knows what happens?
Or as they get older, with future albums,
who knows what happens?
[host] Their latest CD,
No Strings Attached, holds the record
of the fastest-selling album
in music history.
Ladies and gentlemen,
boys and girls, NSYNC.
- Bye, bye, bye ♪
- Bye, bye ♪
- Bye, bye ♪
- Bye, bye ♪
[dramatic music playing]
[Chris] After we left Lou,
we had a record that was huge,
and that's when it felt like
now it's our band.
[tense music playing]
[Lou] Don't ever let anyone tell you
that business is business.
It's not.
Business is about creating things.
It's about developing talent.
It's about connecting with people
and working with them
to build something that will last
long after we're all gone.
[music fades]
And the beat goes on.
Lou Pearlman's Trans Continental companies
has just launched
a nationwide talent search
to cast a new boy band.
Making the Band was a show
about Lou creating a boy band.
Let's keep pushing these guys with
their weaknesses and see what happens.
[Melissa] And the end result was O-Town.
[Marc] Making the Band. O-Town.
This is Lou's creation.
Like he is the guru for boy bands.
[Andy] His process that he did
with Backstreet Boys and NSYNC,
he was gonna bring to the world
on a major network.
You're just underestimating us again.
I'm not. Really, I'm not.
[Jacob] And everybody
at Trans Con always does.
We're not underestimating you at all.
[Jacob] Not one person at Trans Con
even knows what music is.
[laughing]
None of you can dance without a mirror.
When you look in a mirror,
it's all backwards.
I didn't realize I was gonna be
on the show. I had no idea.
That was not part of the plan.
That was part of Lou's plan, not mine.
Do you realize what time it is?
Get your home
and get rid of the girls.
All right. Bye.
I was, uh, chief babysitter.
You're not a star, my friend.
I am not a star.
You're not a star. You're a lab rat.
- Yet.
- No, you're a lab rat.
I am not a star yet.
But you're a lab rat right now.
How they got down
to the final five was intense.
[Erik-Michael]
Jacob is the writer-producer.
You know, Ashley's the cute one.
Trevor's the good dancer.
Dan's all the motivator.
Where am I?
The only person
who's gonna make this work is me,
and I do not wanna be
the anchor that's holding us down
from becoming something great.
I don't wanna know
That I can count her out ♪
You're too scared to talk about ♪
Things I wanna say ♪
[Lou] Marc feels
that you are a very good tenor,
but he feels
that sometimes you get uptight
and that you get angry at yourself
for being corrected sometimes.
And he says you gotta chill out a bit.
[Erik-Michael] It's like
they don't really see who I am.
They just see the attitude.
They don't see how deep I am.
They don't see that, like,
this is more important to me
than anything else in the world.
They don't see any of that.
They just see attitude.
[chuckles]
I see no attitude whatsoever.
He's attitude-free.
He's attitudeless. [laughs]
It wasn't a secret that Lou was involved
in these legal proceedings
with Backstreet and NSYNC.
[Lou] Let me tell you something.
I am the same I've always been.
I do fair deals, otherwise I wouldn't
have been in business for 25 years.
[Erik-Michael] And I'd be lying if I said
that there wasn't massive concern
from us at the time.
But when are we getting
an opportunity like this?
Now this hot girl
She's not your average girl ♪
She's a morpharotic dream
From a magazine ♪
- And she's so fine ♪
- Damn ♪
[Erik-Michael] We saw all of these
accoutrements of success everywhere,
and so we were just like,
"This could be ours soon."
♪dream about a girl
Who's a mix of Destiny's Child ♪
[Erik-Michael] Like, this is
what our life's gonna be now.
Let's just follow him. He's the blueprint.
You got my liquid dreams ♪
[song ends]
I'm not gonna sit here
and lecture you about homework.
This is a serious business.
[reporter] O-Town operates
from this nondescript
Orlando, Florida industrial park,
an eight-million-dollar
state-of-the-art facility,
where Pearlman basically grows
his own bands.
[Melissa] Even though Backstreet
and NSYNC left, and he had lawsuits,
we still had new development coming up,
and we still had new bands.
It was a little chaotic,
but I liked the chaos.
[man] It's mass hysteria.
It's madness.
There's not a place that we would go
without somebody popping out of somewhere.
"Can my daughter sing for you?"
I can't tell you how many
tapes and headshots I collected
of somebody giving Lou
their demo [chuckles]
their photo, whatever it is,
and then him just handing it to me,
"Just give it to Melissa. She'll take it."
[Julia] At that time,
my son became successful.
He had his own house.
He had his own businesses.
And I know he helped the bands.
Lou was doing wonderful things
with my son.
I'm the number one guy. Hey! Hey!
[Andy] It was a scene.
"Lou 4 ever."
And to his investors,
to his family, to his friends,
everyone wanted a piece
of what he could offer.
And we're working hard. Real hard.
[mimics engine revving]
[interviewer] How many
of Lou's other bands can you list?
Holy moly. Okay.
I like girls
That wear Abercrombie & Fitch ♪
[Melissa] LFO.
I'd take her if I had one wish ♪
That goes a little something like this ♪
[Melissa] Aaron Carter.
The popular one with the rising stock ♪
I just can't fight ♪
[Melissa] Take 5.
I feel the sun ♪
I wanna make you see ♪
[Melissa] Brooke Hogan.
b4-4.
It's Friday night ♪
Oh, oh, oh ♪
[Melissa] Innosense.
Britney was in the Innosense band,
and then she left to become a solo artist.
- Oh, oh ♪
- [crowd cheering]
I feel the fire burning ♪
Natural. I love my Natural boys.
I hold onto my destiny
And I'll never let it go ♪
'Cause I live my own life ♪
Found what I set out to ♪
That was my fallback gig, mowing lawns.
[chuckles]
Devote my whole life to you ♪
Lou could meet you
and identify your dream,
and within minutes would be
selling that dream back to you
in a way that was magical.
When I was 11, I was in this dance class.
One time, I walked out
into the lobby of the studio,
and Lou was there with this young band
named the Backstreet Boys.
I knew Lou Pearlman from the local news.
So I introduced myself, and I was like,
"I like to dance, perform, whatever."
A couple years later, the Backstreet Boys
were doing a school tour,
and they came to my middle school.
And after the show,
I went up to Lou, and he remembered me.
"Oh, Michael. I met you a few years ago
at Starlight Dance Studio."
And I was like, "Yes, you did."
There was no other guy
in Orlando, Florida,
that could make a band successful
on a national or a global scale.
[woman] You're legendary for launching
these types of bands,
but just as legendary is
your inability to hold on to them
once they really make it big.
You've lost Backstreet and NSYNC.
What's the problem there?
My family and friends were terrified
that we were signing with Lou Pearlman.
Hey, Lou.
But we knew this was the guy
that was gonna make us a big success.
- What up, Patrick?
- [Patrick groans]
[Michael] How you doing, man?
What number are you on, two?
I'm on the third one.
I just have, like, two more.
We signed our contracts at Lou's office.
It was like plop, "Here's the contracts!"
And we were like, "Yeah. Whatever.
We're looking at our lawyer like,
"You read this? Great. Sounds good."
The sooner we can do this.
- Will you
- [Patrick] Never.
[Michael] Finally get this shot done.
[Patrick] You know, it's kind of the
beggars can't be choosers type of thing.
Here's someone that we know
is gonna help our career a lot,
and without him, nothing's gonna happen.
Could've been, "You have to wear
your underwear on your head every day,"
and we'd have signed it.
[Michael]
If you take the "at" out of "Patrick,"
you know what you have left?
[Patrick] We were stoked.
We were excited because we knew
that the Trans Con experience was
the single best way
to ensure success and what we wanted.
Right here, on this dance floor,
everyone from Backstreet Boys,
NSYNC, LFO, O-Town
Dr. Dre would be in the studio. Eminem.
And they would always invite Lou
into the studio.
"You gotta check out this new track."
Alicia Keys has been here,
Matchbox Twenty,
Creed, Britney's used the studios.
Lou told everybody, once Britney blew up,
that Britney was associated
with Trans Con as well.
We have myself and Britney Spears.
[laughs]
[Michael] Not only was it Lou's presence
that sold us,
it was everybody on the planet
on the highest level saying,
"You're in the right hands.
This is the guy."
When he signed us,
he said, "Within a year,
you're gonna be doing a world tour,
and you're gonna have a gold record."
Eleven months later, we had a gold record,
and we were on a world tour
within six months.
Put your arms around me ♪
You're the one and only ♪
I'll be here
If you let your heart show the way ♪
Always be beside me ♪
Put your arms around me ♪
[Patrick] We started touring around.
I had a conversation with Lou about it,
and he was just like,
"Throw your stuff
in my house while you're gone,
and you don't pay rent.
Then you can figure it out later."
I came back. I stayed there,
and you know, that was that.
I lived with Lou for seven years.
I mean, Lou had
a pretty kick-ass house, so
You get spoiled. Trust me.
[Marc] Patrick! Oh my God.
How is that zit?
[Marc chuckling]
Mike, we gonna be able
to cover up that zit on Patrick's face?
Not a chance.
[Melissa] The way that our bands
presented themselves and lived,
you would think that there was
an endless flow of money.
[Michael] We didn't know that a new band
should get in the van and eat Taco Bell.
We were like, "Well,
we've been working hard at this."
"And so, yeah, the private jet? Great.
This is it. Shrimp cocktail? Let's do it."
[Lou] So we have the boarding cards
to give to you.
Make sure you take a boarding card
when you leave the airplane.
You're gonna have customs forms
to fill out when you arrive.
You're just staying for the night.
Tell them it's pleasure.
I believed that Lou was a billionaire.
- Here we are. Bahamas, baby!
- [man 1] Whoo-hoo!
Yeah!
He has $17,000 in his pocket.
Let's do it!
[man 2] Follow the man.
Lou could make a deal anywhere,
any time, with anybody.
Lou Pearlman wants us to sing. Great.
You know, I remember this one time
that we went to New York
to go eat dinner or whatever.
He was talking to this lady,
and he was like, "Go up there and sing."
Guys, step up.
So singing for investors just kind of
became something that was what you did.
[all] Whoa, oh, oh ♪
For the longest time ♪
Whoa, oh, oh ♪
[Michael] The best way I can describe
what Lou was selling
was the power of the backstage pass.
Presidents of Bank of America had
no business being in our green room,
but I I was friends with these guys.
One more!
[Erik-Michael]
Lou would use us at every point
and introduce us to so many random people.
"This is so-and-so and so-and-so
from Long Island," and, "Sing!"
And we had no idea why.
He would always tout his access
to powerful people,
whether it was the sheriff,
whether it was congressmen, the mayor.
[Erik-Michael] Lou was his own planet,
and he had everyone orbiting around him.
I was dazzled by it.
And the rest of the world
saw Lou that way also
because the press supported his narrative
that he was the all-knowing,
all-giving purveyor of pop.
[news intro music playing]
If Michael Jackson is cleared
of child molestation allegations,
he will still face another battle
reviving his career.
Lou, can you imagine any scenario
in which Michael Jackson
is restored to his former heights?
What I'm saying is
ignore that personal side of it,
and he should go after
the, uh, business side of it
and his creative side of it
[Andy] When Michael Jackson was
going through his stuff in the press,
we had a meeting with the Jacksons,
and Lou said, "You guys got to
get back together again as a family group
because they're going to focus on
this incredible situation
and just forget
all the bad stuff with Michael."
"What a world event that's gonna be."
And it happened.
It's exciting. The brothers are excited.
We're all ready to put it on them.
[Andy] Natural was in New York with us,
and 9/10 was the Jackson event
in Madison Square Garden,
which we were at.
[crowd cheering]
No one ever heard about it.
Because the next morning,
the world fell apart.
[reporter] Oh shit. I don't have
Wait, is there another camera
in the vicinity?
Is there
[Michael] We woke up that morning.
We had a photo shoot downtown.
And we saw the second plane
hit the second tower.
[Andy] There's no air traffic.
No one's flying.
But the day after the world ended,
we needed to get back to Orlando.
We were all like,
"Lou, we're not getting on a plane."
"All planes on the planet are grounded."
"We're stuck here."
Cell towers were down,
but he had a satellite phone.
Lou made a phone call
and said, uh, "The jet's coming."
Sure enough, we wake up the next day.
Plane's waiting for us.
He told me he called George W.
So we're escorted by F-16s
on this plane down to Orlando.
And it was just, like, power on a level
that I couldn't even fathom.
[indistinct chatter]
[Marc] Hey, Lou!
[gentle music playing]
Hey! What's going on? I know you!
How you doing?
[man whistles]
Hi.
[woman] Lou got sick.
Got rushed to the hospital
because he had a cyst on his kidney
that ruptured,
and he was internally bleeding to death.
When he came home from the hospital,
he had to have 24-hour nursing at home.
So I got the phone call.
I was told who he was.
At the time, I didn't know
what a Backstreet Boy or an NSYNC was.
I was always concerned about his health.
[Michael] This is amazing.
[Melissa] We were at a steak house
all the time.
[Michael] There, you got it.
The famous Lou bib. That's the Lou bib.
He didn't always eat the right things,
and, uh, he was very conscious of that.
I hate coppers.
- I hate cops, you understand?
- [man laughs]
Especially food cops.
I took care of him
for about a month and a half, I think.
So he got used to having me there.
And then when I told him
that he didn't need a nurse anymore,
a week later,
he tried calling my cell phone.
And he goes,
"We're gonna fly down to Fort Lauderdale
to go to
a friend of mine's birthday party."
I was introduced as,
"This is Tammie, my girlfriend."
Completely blindsided me.
I would always get cards
for our anniversary.
This one says, "To my special girl."
He tried to kiss me one time.
There was no spark at all.
But he was just a great person.
He put a little Louis Vuitton
inside the sun with my name around it.
He may have given me
a Louis Vuitton that year.
[interviewer]
Do you have time to have a private life?
Well, my girlfriend's a nurse,
so she has this crazy schedule
like I do. So, it's good.
I would say Lou is asexual, okay?
I've never seen him with a girl,
and I've never seen him with a guy.
[Tammie] I think
he was trying to force himself
to be in some kind of
boyfriend-girlfriend-type relationship.
[interviewer] Why was it important
for him, do you think,
to say that you were his girlfriend?
Well, because he knew
that everybody already thought
that he was either some kind of
child molester or pedophile or something.
I never saw that.
Never saw it. Wasn't a part of my life.
Wasn't a part of my experience.
However,
there was some suspect behavior.
He'd always talk, "I need you guys
in shape." You know, whatever.
Started coming up, grabbing our arms.
Then it was like,
"Well, let me see your abs."
You're, like, a 50-60 year old guy.
That's too far.
One two
I only weigh 130. So, you know
He only weighs 130.
[Patrick] Everyone's always like,
"Well, you must have seen something,
heard something."
I was like, "I lived with Lou."
"Not once did I ever see
anybody stay the night there."
I'm not saying
that means it never happened.
[Erik-Michael] If those things actually
did happen, I feel bad for any victims
and, um, anyone
who was taken advantage of.
[intriguing music playing]
[Mandy] I find people that talk about
Lou's sexuality quite pitiful, actually.
He was touchy-feely with the guys,
the younger ones especially.
But no. Not one inch of me
would think anything.
I used to do his letters to people.
I would take all his phone calls.
He loved the way I spoke,
and he said I was so proper,
especially with the shareholders.
The way I spoke to them
and everything was classy, I suppose.
I will never say anything bad about Lou.
And I don't care what anybody says.
[Lou] I came from an aviation background,
and we have our Trans Continental Airlines
and it's just been enormous how
It's the natural progression,
from airlines to music, like I've said.
[Mandy] There were so many
different compartments to Trans Con.
So many different businesses, entities.
Trans Continental everything.
Trans Continental records,
Trans Continental entertainment.
It went on and on and on.
He was in the yogurt business.
TCBY.
It's time to celebrate ♪
He was in the pizza business.
NYPD Pizza,
that's where everybody went to eat.
He acquired a nightclub, Club Paris.
Have fun!
[Mandy] The Orlando Predators.
[commentator] Wide open in the end zone.
It's out of his reach.
He'd point to something
and say, "Well, that's mine."
[chuckles] "You what?" You know.
"You started your own steak house?"
[Patrick] I mean,
he always dabbled in things,
and sometimes he'd do things
where I'm like,
"How did he even get this idea?"
You know, we also, uh, own Chippendales.
[dance music playing]
We had the mothers going to Chippendales
and the daughters to the Backstreet Boys.
[announcer] Chippendales,
the fantasy that never ends.
[tense music playing]
[Melissa] I saw spending at Trans Con,
which was unlike any other company
I've heard of before.
People would take these grand vacations
or get a house or have a wedding,
and Lou would pay for them.
There was, like,
this weird free flow of money.
[reporter] The man known
for creating NSYNC,
the Backstreet Boys, and O-Town
is hoping his next big hit
will be downtown.
Our goal is to put downtown Orlando
back on the entertainment map.
[Erik-Michael] He buys this huge complex.
Church Street Station.
This iconic place in downtown Orlando.
So he's going to turn this
into Lou's megaverse.
So we're gonna go for a quick little tour.
[Mandy] All the business
was going from this office,
and it was a beautiful place.
It looked like
we were getting larger than life.
[Patrick] When Church Street happened,
Frankie was the guy.
Frankie would never tell me anything
'cause he was very good at drawing a line.
And I don't know if that was
to protect Lou or protect himself.
And we have
our new NYPD Pizza House coming.
The original is where NSYNC
and Backstreet Boys,
O-Town and Natural have all come.
We may see Natural
or some guys hanging out there today,
and they're all enjoying their pizza.
It's great.
[Melissa] One particular time,
I questioned,
how does he have this amount of money?
How is he going on
these extravagant vacations
and buying these crazy cars and houses?
How is he doing this?
[tense music ends]
I was told that Lou made
all of his money from planes.
[intriguing music playing]
He would buy them with investors' money,
and then he would lease them out,
and he would make
another 50 million on them.
And [chuckles]
you know, naive me, I never asked
where he got money from again.
[Andy] He was the king of momentum.
As long as it's moving forward,
as long as that snowball's
coming down the hill,
it's getting bigger, it's getting bigger,
whatever cost it takes.
And it got really big.
[dramatic music playing]
[Lou] I build trust by letting people know
that if they are willing to invest
in the success of our business,
I'll buy into their success too.
Most business leaders and managers
say things like that,
but few of them walk the walk.
I do, and I do it in a unique way.
[dramatic music ends]
[Julia] I would talk to Lou and say,
"How is my investment doing?"
Lou was very positive.
He used to say, "It's doing great, Julia."
And my son was behind me,
so I felt comfortable.
[somber music playing]
Lou just painted pictures in our minds,
and we believed what he said.
Everything that he has, he worked for,
and he earned everything on his own.
He went from basically nothing to having
everything that he could ever want.
And he's an amazing businessman.
If you look back at videos of me
at that time, I was confused. [chuckles]
I was so close to all of these people,
and if I would have known,
I would have said,
"Don't give this guy
your freaking life savings!"
But I have finally owned it,
and I've had to, in the years since,
figure out what the hell happened.
He was financing Backstreet
and NSYNC himself
out of the money that he recovered
from the insurance of crashed blimps.
But then he didn't have any more money
from his insurance scheme.
He knew a bunch of people in Germany
through his old Nazi mentor, Wullenkemper.
So he went and sold his soul to BMG.
And it was the worst deal.
What I understand is
he gave away a lot of the farm
just to get them on board
with a major label.
Lou was getting reamed by BMG.
All of the money that was made
by Backstreet, by NSYNC,
Lou was getting
a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of that.
He used the bands as the front,
the BMG deal as a front,
to look like
he's this super successful music mogul.
Everybody thinks
that Lou robbed the bands.
That's not where the money was from.
[gentle music playing]
[woman] This case got started
when a potential investor saw an ad
in the St. Pete Times
for an investment opportunity.
They wanted to find out
if it was a legitimate investment
and if the claims
that were being made were true.
The way Pearlman sold
the Employee Investment Savings Account
was through Trans Continental Airlines.
We call it the EISA, for short, E-I-S-A.
He was offering higher returns than what
traditional financial institutions
were offering at the time.
And the promises were
that it was FDIC-insured,
that it was re-insured by
Lloyds of London and later AIG.
The first time I talked to Lou Pearlman,
he called me out of the blue one day.
He said, "I don't know
if you know who I am."
I think I chuckled at the time
because I was like,
"I don't know who you think you are,
but I know who you are."
[music fades]
[Cheney] After we settled the case
with the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC,
I got the first initiation
of Mr. Pearlman
being not quite so honorable.
[breathes deeply]
I had a contingency contract,
which means
that if we win an amount of money,
I'm getting a percentage of it.
Of the approximately 64 million dollars
that we settled on
that would be owed to Mr. Pearlman,
I was entitled to close to
16 million dollars of that as our fees,
and it never happened.
So, I was like,
"Well, Lou, you haven't paid me."
"I'm going to sue your ass."
[tense music playing]
[Scott] I was in the office one day
and got a call
from a local defense attorney,
a gentleman by the name of Cheney Mason.
He got Lou a favorable settlement,
but he also ran up legal fees.
Lou could have paid Cheney.
He chose not to,
which was a huge mistake.
Cheney, he sued Lou,
and as part of that lawsuit,
Lou had to produce a financial statement.
When you're going to the bank
to get a loan
you're gonna present a financial statement
that makes it look like
you don't need a loan.
It's gonna look great.
But if you're compelled to produce
a financial statement for a bad debt,
it's gonna make it look like
you're dirt poor.
He didn't want to pay Cheney,
and his financial statement
made him look pretty poor.
You compare it to one he submitted
to the bank a week or two before,
and you got bank fraud. Easy.
[vehicle passing by]
[Patrick] I remember one night
we were driving home,
and he was totally pissed off, agitated.
You know, he's like,
"These people, they just don't get it."
You know, totally upset.
And I'm like, "If you're so agitated,
why are you doing this?"
"Quit! Retire! You don't need the money."
He's like, "I can't.
People are relying on me."
"I employ people. They have families."
[Julia] My son used to come
to New York often
to take care of Lou's mother.
One day, he came, and he he was thin.
I said, "Frankie,
why are you losing so much weight?"
He says, "Mom, nothing's going on."
I think Frankie knew a lot of stuff
that he didn't want me to know.
And I think he wanted Lou
to return my money that I had invested.
[Lou] Frankie Vazquez Jr.
was a kid in my old neighborhood
who caught the flying bug from me.
He's an invaluable part of my businesses
and not only because of his many talents.
I also trust him to watch my back.
He's a loyal friend.
[Patrick] For a long time,
everything was so good.
Enjoy the party.
Thank you for coming. Thank you.
[Patrick] But Lou kept information
so close to the vest.
You know, I didn't really know
anything was really, really wrong
until, like, 2006.
One night, there was a group of us
out to dinner at Lou's steakhouse, Pearl.
And Frankie actually came by,
you know, to say hello.
It looked like
he hadn't been, uh, sleeping.
[Patrick]
Frankie was at the end of the table.
I remember Frankie kept talking
to him, and he's like, "Yeah, yeah."
To where it was, like, insubordinate.
I remember looking at Frankie
and being like, "Yo, what is the deal?"
And he's like, "You don't get it.
You're gonna get it."
"Your buddy's done it now.
Your buddy's done it."
And he was rattling on.
And Frankie would be
a most dapper dresser,
and he came by in, like, a pair of shorts,
and it was just, like, sloppy.
I'll never forget
because Frankie didn't act like Frankie.
There were just rumors
that he had some insight
to what was going on with Lou's finances.
[Michael] After that dinner, there was
a big argument between the two of them
in the alley of Church Street Station.
And, um
[exhales]
[somber music playing]
Vazquez was my first
The first friend of mine that
actually committed suicide.
This happy-go-lucky,
wonderful person, beautiful spirit.
[horn blaring]
[Tammie] Lou called me that night.
Probably between 12:00
and 1:00 in the morning.
And he goes, "Frankie died."
"Oh my God. Are you okay?
Do I need to come over?"
"Oh, I'm fine."
Wouldn't say another thing about it.
I called Lou,
and I was like, "Lou, what the fuck?"
[sniffles]
He was like, "Oh, you know, Frankie,
you know, he's always kind of a softy,
like, he just he couldn't handle
the heat of the business."
And that moment,
it made me suppress Frankie's death.
[Marc] To be sitting
at your friend's funeral
that committed suicide,
and you're part of the team
for the person that was responsible.
[interviewer]
You hold Lou responsible for that?
For Frankie's death?
Yes, I hold Lou responsible
for Frankie's death. I do. I do.
Didn't close the garage door.
Didn't write the note.
But he might as well have.
How do you look into his mother's face
at that funeral and say, "I had no idea"?
[Julia] You don't know
how difficult it is to lose a son.
You know,
maybe we would have had grandchildren.
Life would have been different for us.
Lou Pearlman took my son away from me.
[somber music ends]
[helicopter blades whirring]
- [sirens wailing]
- [dramatic music playing]
[woman over radio] Atlantic Street.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[Michael] I was the closest one in the end
because I was traveling the world with him
and was able to see behind this curtain
that he had pulled over
the entire world's eyes.
Turns out we were on the run from the FBI,
and he was a freaking fugitive.
[dramatic music ends]
[gentle music playing]
[gentle music ends]
[whistling]
[intriguing music playing]
I'm not sure if
I was at that party per se.
Back in the day, Lou and I,
we used to fly to Atlantic City,
down to the casinos,
and Lou used to take the airline tickets
and somehow change it,
and we used to get on flights for free.
[interviewer] Did Lou forge any documents
for his companies?
I've never seen him forge any documents.
Uh, maybe embellish, but not forge.
I used to work for Goodyear.
And that's what gave me some of the ideas
to go ahead
and get into the blimp business.
Jordache people decided to top
everything they have done so far,
so they rented a huge blimp.
It all started at Lakehurst with Jordache.
[reporter 1] It crashed this morning
on its maiden flight.
It was up for about two minutes,
and then it crashed.
[reporter 2] It would have been bound
for Battery Park City.
The Jordache folks
were showing their fall line there.
Disappointed spectators had
a few words of advice for Jordache.
Uh, yeah, I think
they should stick with jeans.
[Melissa] It was almost a joke,
kind of behind Lou's back,
of people talking about
how all the blimps crashed.
One crashed,
and then in a very short period of time,
the others followed.
[Marc] MetLife and Shamu and McDonald's.
Yeah, hmm.
All the blimps crashed at the same time.
That's kind of weird.
Well, it was insured.
I have heard
insurance money came out of it.
We didn't only raise money once
on Airship.
Like every company,
they burn through cash,
and you raise more money.
People loved Lou.
He was a good salesperson.
We have a lot of top-secret maneuvers
that we're gonna be performing
when this race is occurring.
[Marc] One night, when I was a driver
for him in New York,
we were in downtown Manhattan.
He goes, "Stop here."
So I pull over to Citibank.
Goes down the block, he says,
"Stop here." It's another Citibank.
And I have to stop at 30 Citibanks
on the way home.
Do I know what was going on?
Absolutely not.
He was moving all his money
to somewhere, who knows.
[interviewer]
What came shortly thereafter?
Um, his move to Florida.
You got to remember.
With Lou, there wasn't one story
that we all had.
We all had a different Lou.
So my story was
The blimps crashed.
We're starting a boy band.
[chuckles]
[eerie music playing]
[eerie music ends]
[Lou] I consider the people who work
for Trans Continental's companies
to be family.
When I first learned of the allegations
coming from the Backstreet Boys' lawyers,
I felt like a father whose kids
had moved out of the house
and fallen into bad company.
But I've come to realize
that even the closest families
have their squabbles and disagreements.
[news intro plays]
[reporter 1]
While the Backstreet Boys continue
on a seemingly normal rock star schedule,
they and their management are
embroiled in a host of lawsuits.
You're estimated to have earned
200 million dollars.
[Howie] We heard.
How much of that have you seen?
We haven't seen anywhere near that.
[reporter 2] Backstreet Boys
sued Big Poppa,
claiming that he'd pocketed
43% of the band's profits.
And NSYNC,
Trans Con's second biggest act,
just hired a team of lawyers
to help them try to get out
of their original Trans Con contract.
[interviewer] It wouldn't appear to be
a big happy family right now.
It depends on how you look at it.
If you're inside the family,
you understand what's going on.
I felt like a puppet.
Like, I'm doing
what this guy tells me to do,
and I didn't know why.
The most trusted person
in our circle was a crook.
We were blindsided to, you know,
Lou being the sixth member of the group.
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.
[dramatic music playing]
[man] The Backstreet Boys
and NSYNC believed
that Lou Pearlman was cheating them.
Mr. Pearlman wanted
a higher-profile lawyer to represent him,
and I was involved in defending
Casey Anthony for about two years.
There is no evidence of that.
You can't even guess that far.
The bottom line was
that Lou made himself the sixth member
of the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC.
Here I am with the Backstreet Boys.
And so he was entitled to rewards
for what he did
in the creation of the group.
Lou spent a lot of money
training these kids.
He created the Backstreet Boys,
and he created NSYNC.
Whether they like it or not,
those are the undisputed facts.
[Lou] The kids should take a step back
and say, "Who took the risk?"
"Who put up all the money?
Who's my real Big Poppa?"
[reporter 1] As settlement talks
with NSYNC continue,
fans have formed a prayer circle
outside of the courthouse.
Please be with them today in the court,
and please make them
really come out victorious.
We need to look after NSYNC
and what we need to go to the next level.
If it's not with Trans Con,
then it's not with them.
- Hey, but does that make you ungrateful?
- [Lance] No.
Because Trans Con was there
when you guys were nobody.
Yeah, but Trans Con
has definitely been compensated.
You know, so, you're out of my life.
Goodbye. See you.
[reporter 2]
The Backstreet Boys have severed ties
with Pearlman's company Trans Continental
and found other management.
[AJ] The ten of us, us and NSYNC,
we did buy Lou out.
A settlement was the easiest way
to get out.
[interviewer] Do you remember
what you bought him out for?
It was a decent amount.
[dramatic music playing]
[Cheney] The amount we settled on
that Lou was entitled to collect
was, like, about 64 million dollars.
[Lou] Well, first of all, I'd like to say
that all of our agreements
with our artists are very fair.
I'm still earning, uh, dollars from
their record sales to this day,
and certainly we've had agreements,
though they're confidential.
Lou and Trans Con ultimately ended
their contractual obligations
with Backstreet and NSYNC,
but there was a deal that was made,
and Lou would still remain a sixth member.
Sometimes you find that when
an artist goes their own direction,
they don't do as well
as when we guided them.
Bullshit.
That's a fucking joke.
Except for Justin Timberlake. [laughs]
I can say that all of our artists
who have followed our direction
have been very big and very successful.
But as they go solo,
who knows what happens?
Or as they get older, with future albums,
who knows what happens?
[host] Their latest CD,
No Strings Attached, holds the record
of the fastest-selling album
in music history.
Ladies and gentlemen,
boys and girls, NSYNC.
- Bye, bye, bye ♪
- Bye, bye ♪
- Bye, bye ♪
- Bye, bye ♪
[dramatic music playing]
[Chris] After we left Lou,
we had a record that was huge,
and that's when it felt like
now it's our band.
[tense music playing]
[Lou] Don't ever let anyone tell you
that business is business.
It's not.
Business is about creating things.
It's about developing talent.
It's about connecting with people
and working with them
to build something that will last
long after we're all gone.
[music fades]
And the beat goes on.
Lou Pearlman's Trans Continental companies
has just launched
a nationwide talent search
to cast a new boy band.
Making the Band was a show
about Lou creating a boy band.
Let's keep pushing these guys with
their weaknesses and see what happens.
[Melissa] And the end result was O-Town.
[Marc] Making the Band. O-Town.
This is Lou's creation.
Like he is the guru for boy bands.
[Andy] His process that he did
with Backstreet Boys and NSYNC,
he was gonna bring to the world
on a major network.
You're just underestimating us again.
I'm not. Really, I'm not.
[Jacob] And everybody
at Trans Con always does.
We're not underestimating you at all.
[Jacob] Not one person at Trans Con
even knows what music is.
[laughing]
None of you can dance without a mirror.
When you look in a mirror,
it's all backwards.
I didn't realize I was gonna be
on the show. I had no idea.
That was not part of the plan.
That was part of Lou's plan, not mine.
Do you realize what time it is?
Get your home
and get rid of the girls.
All right. Bye.
I was, uh, chief babysitter.
You're not a star, my friend.
I am not a star.
You're not a star. You're a lab rat.
- Yet.
- No, you're a lab rat.
I am not a star yet.
But you're a lab rat right now.
How they got down
to the final five was intense.
[Erik-Michael]
Jacob is the writer-producer.
You know, Ashley's the cute one.
Trevor's the good dancer.
Dan's all the motivator.
Where am I?
The only person
who's gonna make this work is me,
and I do not wanna be
the anchor that's holding us down
from becoming something great.
I don't wanna know
That I can count her out ♪
You're too scared to talk about ♪
Things I wanna say ♪
[Lou] Marc feels
that you are a very good tenor,
but he feels
that sometimes you get uptight
and that you get angry at yourself
for being corrected sometimes.
And he says you gotta chill out a bit.
[Erik-Michael] It's like
they don't really see who I am.
They just see the attitude.
They don't see how deep I am.
They don't see that, like,
this is more important to me
than anything else in the world.
They don't see any of that.
They just see attitude.
[chuckles]
I see no attitude whatsoever.
He's attitude-free.
He's attitudeless. [laughs]
It wasn't a secret that Lou was involved
in these legal proceedings
with Backstreet and NSYNC.
[Lou] Let me tell you something.
I am the same I've always been.
I do fair deals, otherwise I wouldn't
have been in business for 25 years.
[Erik-Michael] And I'd be lying if I said
that there wasn't massive concern
from us at the time.
But when are we getting
an opportunity like this?
Now this hot girl
She's not your average girl ♪
She's a morpharotic dream
From a magazine ♪
- And she's so fine ♪
- Damn ♪
[Erik-Michael] We saw all of these
accoutrements of success everywhere,
and so we were just like,
"This could be ours soon."
♪dream about a girl
Who's a mix of Destiny's Child ♪
[Erik-Michael] Like, this is
what our life's gonna be now.
Let's just follow him. He's the blueprint.
You got my liquid dreams ♪
[song ends]
I'm not gonna sit here
and lecture you about homework.
This is a serious business.
[reporter] O-Town operates
from this nondescript
Orlando, Florida industrial park,
an eight-million-dollar
state-of-the-art facility,
where Pearlman basically grows
his own bands.
[Melissa] Even though Backstreet
and NSYNC left, and he had lawsuits,
we still had new development coming up,
and we still had new bands.
It was a little chaotic,
but I liked the chaos.
[man] It's mass hysteria.
It's madness.
There's not a place that we would go
without somebody popping out of somewhere.
"Can my daughter sing for you?"
I can't tell you how many
tapes and headshots I collected
of somebody giving Lou
their demo [chuckles]
their photo, whatever it is,
and then him just handing it to me,
"Just give it to Melissa. She'll take it."
[Julia] At that time,
my son became successful.
He had his own house.
He had his own businesses.
And I know he helped the bands.
Lou was doing wonderful things
with my son.
I'm the number one guy. Hey! Hey!
[Andy] It was a scene.
"Lou 4 ever."
And to his investors,
to his family, to his friends,
everyone wanted a piece
of what he could offer.
And we're working hard. Real hard.
[mimics engine revving]
[interviewer] How many
of Lou's other bands can you list?
Holy moly. Okay.
I like girls
That wear Abercrombie & Fitch ♪
[Melissa] LFO.
I'd take her if I had one wish ♪
That goes a little something like this ♪
[Melissa] Aaron Carter.
The popular one with the rising stock ♪
I just can't fight ♪
[Melissa] Take 5.
I feel the sun ♪
I wanna make you see ♪
[Melissa] Brooke Hogan.
b4-4.
It's Friday night ♪
Oh, oh, oh ♪
[Melissa] Innosense.
Britney was in the Innosense band,
and then she left to become a solo artist.
- Oh, oh ♪
- [crowd cheering]
I feel the fire burning ♪
Natural. I love my Natural boys.
I hold onto my destiny
And I'll never let it go ♪
'Cause I live my own life ♪
Found what I set out to ♪
That was my fallback gig, mowing lawns.
[chuckles]
Devote my whole life to you ♪
Lou could meet you
and identify your dream,
and within minutes would be
selling that dream back to you
in a way that was magical.
When I was 11, I was in this dance class.
One time, I walked out
into the lobby of the studio,
and Lou was there with this young band
named the Backstreet Boys.
I knew Lou Pearlman from the local news.
So I introduced myself, and I was like,
"I like to dance, perform, whatever."
A couple years later, the Backstreet Boys
were doing a school tour,
and they came to my middle school.
And after the show,
I went up to Lou, and he remembered me.
"Oh, Michael. I met you a few years ago
at Starlight Dance Studio."
And I was like, "Yes, you did."
There was no other guy
in Orlando, Florida,
that could make a band successful
on a national or a global scale.
[woman] You're legendary for launching
these types of bands,
but just as legendary is
your inability to hold on to them
once they really make it big.
You've lost Backstreet and NSYNC.
What's the problem there?
My family and friends were terrified
that we were signing with Lou Pearlman.
Hey, Lou.
But we knew this was the guy
that was gonna make us a big success.
- What up, Patrick?
- [Patrick groans]
[Michael] How you doing, man?
What number are you on, two?
I'm on the third one.
I just have, like, two more.
We signed our contracts at Lou's office.
It was like plop, "Here's the contracts!"
And we were like, "Yeah. Whatever.
We're looking at our lawyer like,
"You read this? Great. Sounds good."
The sooner we can do this.
- Will you
- [Patrick] Never.
[Michael] Finally get this shot done.
[Patrick] You know, it's kind of the
beggars can't be choosers type of thing.
Here's someone that we know
is gonna help our career a lot,
and without him, nothing's gonna happen.
Could've been, "You have to wear
your underwear on your head every day,"
and we'd have signed it.
[Michael]
If you take the "at" out of "Patrick,"
you know what you have left?
[Patrick] We were stoked.
We were excited because we knew
that the Trans Con experience was
the single best way
to ensure success and what we wanted.
Right here, on this dance floor,
everyone from Backstreet Boys,
NSYNC, LFO, O-Town
Dr. Dre would be in the studio. Eminem.
And they would always invite Lou
into the studio.
"You gotta check out this new track."
Alicia Keys has been here,
Matchbox Twenty,
Creed, Britney's used the studios.
Lou told everybody, once Britney blew up,
that Britney was associated
with Trans Con as well.
We have myself and Britney Spears.
[laughs]
[Michael] Not only was it Lou's presence
that sold us,
it was everybody on the planet
on the highest level saying,
"You're in the right hands.
This is the guy."
When he signed us,
he said, "Within a year,
you're gonna be doing a world tour,
and you're gonna have a gold record."
Eleven months later, we had a gold record,
and we were on a world tour
within six months.
Put your arms around me ♪
You're the one and only ♪
I'll be here
If you let your heart show the way ♪
Always be beside me ♪
Put your arms around me ♪
[Patrick] We started touring around.
I had a conversation with Lou about it,
and he was just like,
"Throw your stuff
in my house while you're gone,
and you don't pay rent.
Then you can figure it out later."
I came back. I stayed there,
and you know, that was that.
I lived with Lou for seven years.
I mean, Lou had
a pretty kick-ass house, so
You get spoiled. Trust me.
[Marc] Patrick! Oh my God.
How is that zit?
[Marc chuckling]
Mike, we gonna be able
to cover up that zit on Patrick's face?
Not a chance.
[Melissa] The way that our bands
presented themselves and lived,
you would think that there was
an endless flow of money.
[Michael] We didn't know that a new band
should get in the van and eat Taco Bell.
We were like, "Well,
we've been working hard at this."
"And so, yeah, the private jet? Great.
This is it. Shrimp cocktail? Let's do it."
[Lou] So we have the boarding cards
to give to you.
Make sure you take a boarding card
when you leave the airplane.
You're gonna have customs forms
to fill out when you arrive.
You're just staying for the night.
Tell them it's pleasure.
I believed that Lou was a billionaire.
- Here we are. Bahamas, baby!
- [man 1] Whoo-hoo!
Yeah!
He has $17,000 in his pocket.
Let's do it!
[man 2] Follow the man.
Lou could make a deal anywhere,
any time, with anybody.
Lou Pearlman wants us to sing. Great.
You know, I remember this one time
that we went to New York
to go eat dinner or whatever.
He was talking to this lady,
and he was like, "Go up there and sing."
Guys, step up.
So singing for investors just kind of
became something that was what you did.
[all] Whoa, oh, oh ♪
For the longest time ♪
Whoa, oh, oh ♪
[Michael] The best way I can describe
what Lou was selling
was the power of the backstage pass.
Presidents of Bank of America had
no business being in our green room,
but I I was friends with these guys.
One more!
[Erik-Michael]
Lou would use us at every point
and introduce us to so many random people.
"This is so-and-so and so-and-so
from Long Island," and, "Sing!"
And we had no idea why.
He would always tout his access
to powerful people,
whether it was the sheriff,
whether it was congressmen, the mayor.
[Erik-Michael] Lou was his own planet,
and he had everyone orbiting around him.
I was dazzled by it.
And the rest of the world
saw Lou that way also
because the press supported his narrative
that he was the all-knowing,
all-giving purveyor of pop.
[news intro music playing]
If Michael Jackson is cleared
of child molestation allegations,
he will still face another battle
reviving his career.
Lou, can you imagine any scenario
in which Michael Jackson
is restored to his former heights?
What I'm saying is
ignore that personal side of it,
and he should go after
the, uh, business side of it
and his creative side of it
[Andy] When Michael Jackson was
going through his stuff in the press,
we had a meeting with the Jacksons,
and Lou said, "You guys got to
get back together again as a family group
because they're going to focus on
this incredible situation
and just forget
all the bad stuff with Michael."
"What a world event that's gonna be."
And it happened.
It's exciting. The brothers are excited.
We're all ready to put it on them.
[Andy] Natural was in New York with us,
and 9/10 was the Jackson event
in Madison Square Garden,
which we were at.
[crowd cheering]
No one ever heard about it.
Because the next morning,
the world fell apart.
[reporter] Oh shit. I don't have
Wait, is there another camera
in the vicinity?
Is there
[Michael] We woke up that morning.
We had a photo shoot downtown.
And we saw the second plane
hit the second tower.
[Andy] There's no air traffic.
No one's flying.
But the day after the world ended,
we needed to get back to Orlando.
We were all like,
"Lou, we're not getting on a plane."
"All planes on the planet are grounded."
"We're stuck here."
Cell towers were down,
but he had a satellite phone.
Lou made a phone call
and said, uh, "The jet's coming."
Sure enough, we wake up the next day.
Plane's waiting for us.
He told me he called George W.
So we're escorted by F-16s
on this plane down to Orlando.
And it was just, like, power on a level
that I couldn't even fathom.
[indistinct chatter]
[Marc] Hey, Lou!
[gentle music playing]
Hey! What's going on? I know you!
How you doing?
[man whistles]
Hi.
[woman] Lou got sick.
Got rushed to the hospital
because he had a cyst on his kidney
that ruptured,
and he was internally bleeding to death.
When he came home from the hospital,
he had to have 24-hour nursing at home.
So I got the phone call.
I was told who he was.
At the time, I didn't know
what a Backstreet Boy or an NSYNC was.
I was always concerned about his health.
[Michael] This is amazing.
[Melissa] We were at a steak house
all the time.
[Michael] There, you got it.
The famous Lou bib. That's the Lou bib.
He didn't always eat the right things,
and, uh, he was very conscious of that.
I hate coppers.
- I hate cops, you understand?
- [man laughs]
Especially food cops.
I took care of him
for about a month and a half, I think.
So he got used to having me there.
And then when I told him
that he didn't need a nurse anymore,
a week later,
he tried calling my cell phone.
And he goes,
"We're gonna fly down to Fort Lauderdale
to go to
a friend of mine's birthday party."
I was introduced as,
"This is Tammie, my girlfriend."
Completely blindsided me.
I would always get cards
for our anniversary.
This one says, "To my special girl."
He tried to kiss me one time.
There was no spark at all.
But he was just a great person.
He put a little Louis Vuitton
inside the sun with my name around it.
He may have given me
a Louis Vuitton that year.
[interviewer]
Do you have time to have a private life?
Well, my girlfriend's a nurse,
so she has this crazy schedule
like I do. So, it's good.
I would say Lou is asexual, okay?
I've never seen him with a girl,
and I've never seen him with a guy.
[Tammie] I think
he was trying to force himself
to be in some kind of
boyfriend-girlfriend-type relationship.
[interviewer] Why was it important
for him, do you think,
to say that you were his girlfriend?
Well, because he knew
that everybody already thought
that he was either some kind of
child molester or pedophile or something.
I never saw that.
Never saw it. Wasn't a part of my life.
Wasn't a part of my experience.
However,
there was some suspect behavior.
He'd always talk, "I need you guys
in shape." You know, whatever.
Started coming up, grabbing our arms.
Then it was like,
"Well, let me see your abs."
You're, like, a 50-60 year old guy.
That's too far.
One two
I only weigh 130. So, you know
He only weighs 130.
[Patrick] Everyone's always like,
"Well, you must have seen something,
heard something."
I was like, "I lived with Lou."
"Not once did I ever see
anybody stay the night there."
I'm not saying
that means it never happened.
[Erik-Michael] If those things actually
did happen, I feel bad for any victims
and, um, anyone
who was taken advantage of.
[intriguing music playing]
[Mandy] I find people that talk about
Lou's sexuality quite pitiful, actually.
He was touchy-feely with the guys,
the younger ones especially.
But no. Not one inch of me
would think anything.
I used to do his letters to people.
I would take all his phone calls.
He loved the way I spoke,
and he said I was so proper,
especially with the shareholders.
The way I spoke to them
and everything was classy, I suppose.
I will never say anything bad about Lou.
And I don't care what anybody says.
[Lou] I came from an aviation background,
and we have our Trans Continental Airlines
and it's just been enormous how
It's the natural progression,
from airlines to music, like I've said.
[Mandy] There were so many
different compartments to Trans Con.
So many different businesses, entities.
Trans Continental everything.
Trans Continental records,
Trans Continental entertainment.
It went on and on and on.
He was in the yogurt business.
TCBY.
It's time to celebrate ♪
He was in the pizza business.
NYPD Pizza,
that's where everybody went to eat.
He acquired a nightclub, Club Paris.
Have fun!
[Mandy] The Orlando Predators.
[commentator] Wide open in the end zone.
It's out of his reach.
He'd point to something
and say, "Well, that's mine."
[chuckles] "You what?" You know.
"You started your own steak house?"
[Patrick] I mean,
he always dabbled in things,
and sometimes he'd do things
where I'm like,
"How did he even get this idea?"
You know, we also, uh, own Chippendales.
[dance music playing]
We had the mothers going to Chippendales
and the daughters to the Backstreet Boys.
[announcer] Chippendales,
the fantasy that never ends.
[tense music playing]
[Melissa] I saw spending at Trans Con,
which was unlike any other company
I've heard of before.
People would take these grand vacations
or get a house or have a wedding,
and Lou would pay for them.
There was, like,
this weird free flow of money.
[reporter] The man known
for creating NSYNC,
the Backstreet Boys, and O-Town
is hoping his next big hit
will be downtown.
Our goal is to put downtown Orlando
back on the entertainment map.
[Erik-Michael] He buys this huge complex.
Church Street Station.
This iconic place in downtown Orlando.
So he's going to turn this
into Lou's megaverse.
So we're gonna go for a quick little tour.
[Mandy] All the business
was going from this office,
and it was a beautiful place.
It looked like
we were getting larger than life.
[Patrick] When Church Street happened,
Frankie was the guy.
Frankie would never tell me anything
'cause he was very good at drawing a line.
And I don't know if that was
to protect Lou or protect himself.
And we have
our new NYPD Pizza House coming.
The original is where NSYNC
and Backstreet Boys,
O-Town and Natural have all come.
We may see Natural
or some guys hanging out there today,
and they're all enjoying their pizza.
It's great.
[Melissa] One particular time,
I questioned,
how does he have this amount of money?
How is he going on
these extravagant vacations
and buying these crazy cars and houses?
How is he doing this?
[tense music ends]
I was told that Lou made
all of his money from planes.
[intriguing music playing]
He would buy them with investors' money,
and then he would lease them out,
and he would make
another 50 million on them.
And [chuckles]
you know, naive me, I never asked
where he got money from again.
[Andy] He was the king of momentum.
As long as it's moving forward,
as long as that snowball's
coming down the hill,
it's getting bigger, it's getting bigger,
whatever cost it takes.
And it got really big.
[dramatic music playing]
[Lou] I build trust by letting people know
that if they are willing to invest
in the success of our business,
I'll buy into their success too.
Most business leaders and managers
say things like that,
but few of them walk the walk.
I do, and I do it in a unique way.
[dramatic music ends]
[Julia] I would talk to Lou and say,
"How is my investment doing?"
Lou was very positive.
He used to say, "It's doing great, Julia."
And my son was behind me,
so I felt comfortable.
[somber music playing]
Lou just painted pictures in our minds,
and we believed what he said.
Everything that he has, he worked for,
and he earned everything on his own.
He went from basically nothing to having
everything that he could ever want.
And he's an amazing businessman.
If you look back at videos of me
at that time, I was confused. [chuckles]
I was so close to all of these people,
and if I would have known,
I would have said,
"Don't give this guy
your freaking life savings!"
But I have finally owned it,
and I've had to, in the years since,
figure out what the hell happened.
He was financing Backstreet
and NSYNC himself
out of the money that he recovered
from the insurance of crashed blimps.
But then he didn't have any more money
from his insurance scheme.
He knew a bunch of people in Germany
through his old Nazi mentor, Wullenkemper.
So he went and sold his soul to BMG.
And it was the worst deal.
What I understand is
he gave away a lot of the farm
just to get them on board
with a major label.
Lou was getting reamed by BMG.
All of the money that was made
by Backstreet, by NSYNC,
Lou was getting
a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of that.
He used the bands as the front,
the BMG deal as a front,
to look like
he's this super successful music mogul.
Everybody thinks
that Lou robbed the bands.
That's not where the money was from.
[gentle music playing]
[woman] This case got started
when a potential investor saw an ad
in the St. Pete Times
for an investment opportunity.
They wanted to find out
if it was a legitimate investment
and if the claims
that were being made were true.
The way Pearlman sold
the Employee Investment Savings Account
was through Trans Continental Airlines.
We call it the EISA, for short, E-I-S-A.
He was offering higher returns than what
traditional financial institutions
were offering at the time.
And the promises were
that it was FDIC-insured,
that it was re-insured by
Lloyds of London and later AIG.
The first time I talked to Lou Pearlman,
he called me out of the blue one day.
He said, "I don't know
if you know who I am."
I think I chuckled at the time
because I was like,
"I don't know who you think you are,
but I know who you are."
[music fades]
[Cheney] After we settled the case
with the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC,
I got the first initiation
of Mr. Pearlman
being not quite so honorable.
[breathes deeply]
I had a contingency contract,
which means
that if we win an amount of money,
I'm getting a percentage of it.
Of the approximately 64 million dollars
that we settled on
that would be owed to Mr. Pearlman,
I was entitled to close to
16 million dollars of that as our fees,
and it never happened.
So, I was like,
"Well, Lou, you haven't paid me."
"I'm going to sue your ass."
[tense music playing]
[Scott] I was in the office one day
and got a call
from a local defense attorney,
a gentleman by the name of Cheney Mason.
He got Lou a favorable settlement,
but he also ran up legal fees.
Lou could have paid Cheney.
He chose not to,
which was a huge mistake.
Cheney, he sued Lou,
and as part of that lawsuit,
Lou had to produce a financial statement.
When you're going to the bank
to get a loan
you're gonna present a financial statement
that makes it look like
you don't need a loan.
It's gonna look great.
But if you're compelled to produce
a financial statement for a bad debt,
it's gonna make it look like
you're dirt poor.
He didn't want to pay Cheney,
and his financial statement
made him look pretty poor.
You compare it to one he submitted
to the bank a week or two before,
and you got bank fraud. Easy.
[vehicle passing by]
[Patrick] I remember one night
we were driving home,
and he was totally pissed off, agitated.
You know, he's like,
"These people, they just don't get it."
You know, totally upset.
And I'm like, "If you're so agitated,
why are you doing this?"
"Quit! Retire! You don't need the money."
He's like, "I can't.
People are relying on me."
"I employ people. They have families."
[Julia] My son used to come
to New York often
to take care of Lou's mother.
One day, he came, and he he was thin.
I said, "Frankie,
why are you losing so much weight?"
He says, "Mom, nothing's going on."
I think Frankie knew a lot of stuff
that he didn't want me to know.
And I think he wanted Lou
to return my money that I had invested.
[Lou] Frankie Vazquez Jr.
was a kid in my old neighborhood
who caught the flying bug from me.
He's an invaluable part of my businesses
and not only because of his many talents.
I also trust him to watch my back.
He's a loyal friend.
[Patrick] For a long time,
everything was so good.
Enjoy the party.
Thank you for coming. Thank you.
[Patrick] But Lou kept information
so close to the vest.
You know, I didn't really know
anything was really, really wrong
until, like, 2006.
One night, there was a group of us
out to dinner at Lou's steakhouse, Pearl.
And Frankie actually came by,
you know, to say hello.
It looked like
he hadn't been, uh, sleeping.
[Patrick]
Frankie was at the end of the table.
I remember Frankie kept talking
to him, and he's like, "Yeah, yeah."
To where it was, like, insubordinate.
I remember looking at Frankie
and being like, "Yo, what is the deal?"
And he's like, "You don't get it.
You're gonna get it."
"Your buddy's done it now.
Your buddy's done it."
And he was rattling on.
And Frankie would be
a most dapper dresser,
and he came by in, like, a pair of shorts,
and it was just, like, sloppy.
I'll never forget
because Frankie didn't act like Frankie.
There were just rumors
that he had some insight
to what was going on with Lou's finances.
[Michael] After that dinner, there was
a big argument between the two of them
in the alley of Church Street Station.
And, um
[exhales]
[somber music playing]
Vazquez was my first
The first friend of mine that
actually committed suicide.
This happy-go-lucky,
wonderful person, beautiful spirit.
[horn blaring]
[Tammie] Lou called me that night.
Probably between 12:00
and 1:00 in the morning.
And he goes, "Frankie died."
"Oh my God. Are you okay?
Do I need to come over?"
"Oh, I'm fine."
Wouldn't say another thing about it.
I called Lou,
and I was like, "Lou, what the fuck?"
[sniffles]
He was like, "Oh, you know, Frankie,
you know, he's always kind of a softy,
like, he just he couldn't handle
the heat of the business."
And that moment,
it made me suppress Frankie's death.
[Marc] To be sitting
at your friend's funeral
that committed suicide,
and you're part of the team
for the person that was responsible.
[interviewer]
You hold Lou responsible for that?
For Frankie's death?
Yes, I hold Lou responsible
for Frankie's death. I do. I do.
Didn't close the garage door.
Didn't write the note.
But he might as well have.
How do you look into his mother's face
at that funeral and say, "I had no idea"?
[Julia] You don't know
how difficult it is to lose a son.
You know,
maybe we would have had grandchildren.
Life would have been different for us.
Lou Pearlman took my son away from me.
[somber music ends]
[helicopter blades whirring]
- [sirens wailing]
- [dramatic music playing]
[woman over radio] Atlantic Street.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[Michael] I was the closest one in the end
because I was traveling the world with him
and was able to see behind this curtain
that he had pulled over
the entire world's eyes.
Turns out we were on the run from the FBI,
and he was a freaking fugitive.
[dramatic music ends]
[gentle music playing]
[gentle music ends]