Dirty Pop: What happened to Lou Pearlman?

Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam has arrived on Netflix, detailing the rise and fall of talent manager and scam artist Lou Pearlman. 

Hoaxes and fraudsters are well-trodden ground in the true crime arena, having kicked off with Netflix’s Tinder Swindler. 

More recently, the issue of fertility fraud was highlighted in The Man With 1000 Kids, while Sherri Papini’s kidnapping hoax hit the headlines again amid the release of Hulu’s Perfect Wife.

What makes Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam standout is that it involves some of the world’s most famous pop stars, featuring interviews from members of Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. But what about the man credited with their inception?

Who was Lou Pearlman?

Born in 1954 in New York, Lou Pearlman was a businessman and talent manager, best known for forming many successful ‘90s boy bands including Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC for his criminal activities came to light.

He initially started in the aviation industry, launching Airship International in the ‘80s, which offered blimp-based advertising. 

However, when a number of his blimps crashed in a short period of time, he relocated to Florida and launched Trans Continental, an umbrella term for a collection of businesses including an airline and record company. 

During this time, Pearlman, whose interest in the music business stemmed from his first cousin Art Garfunkel, became fascinated with the success of New Kids on the Block. 

He would go on to form boy bands such as *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys under the Trans Continental label, bankrolling their rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. He went on to formulate other groups including O-Town, LFO, Take 5, and Natural, many created on his TV show Making The Band.

Pearlman portrayed himself as a visionary entrepreneur, leveraging his supposed airline company to build credibility. But this entire empire was a facade, leading to the uncovering of one of the largest and most infamous Ponzi schemes in history.

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment scam that promises high returns with little risk to investors. It pays profits to early investors using funds from more recent investors, rather than legitimate business activities or genuine profits.

What did he do?

While on the outside Pearlman was hugely successful, in reality he spent years convincing thousands of private investors and banks to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars for his Trans Continental aviation businesses – despite the fact they didn’t exist. 

Pearlman would forge documents and fraudulently trick people including artists, friends, and business partners into investing their savings into an “FDIC-insured” savings program for companies that weren’t real. 

In the Netflix docu-series, it’s revealed the planes featured in the brochures for his Trans Continental Airlines were actually just toys positioned on a runway to make them appear life-sized. 

Pearlman also faced a number of lawsuits over the years from his musical acts, starting with the Backstreet Boys. The band felt they were being exploited, questioning why they had earned just $300,000 since their inception while Pearlman had raked in a reported $10 million.

During the case, it was revealed Pearlman was listed as a sixth member of the band. AJ McLean, who appears in Dirty Pop, says, “We were blindsided to Lou being the sixth member of the group.

“You’re going to make your management commission, but you’re also going to make exactly how much the five of us make, and you’re not out there doing what we’re doing.”

In 1999, *NSYNC followed suit and sued. But while both bands managed to get out of their contracts, they ended up having to pay Pearlman millions of dollars to settle.

Adding to this, Cheney Mason (the lawyer best known for defending Casey Anthony during her murder trial) was hired by Pearlman to help him with the case. 

But Mason would go on to sue the music mogul too after he failed to pay him for his services, and it was this that kickstarted Pearlman’s downfall. 

Mason’s case alerted the attention of the FBI, which launched an investigation and soon discovered Pearlman had committed bank fraud. 

What happened to Pearlman?

After going on the run, Pearlman was eventually captured by the authorities in Bali, Indonesia, in June 2007. He was sentenced to 25 years behind bars and died in a prison hospital on August 19, 2016, aged 62.

Prior to his conviction, Pearlman pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, money laundering, and making false statements during bankruptcy proceedings. 

As a result of the case, Pearlman and his companies were forced into involuntary bankruptcy, with many of those who invested their life savings not seeing a penny of their cash. 

According to Netflix, to this day, more than $400 million acquired in Pearlman’s Ponzi scheme remains unrecovered.

Although he was due for parole in 2029, Pearlman had a stroke while in prison in 2010 where it was discovered he had an infection on his heart valve. He agreed to go under a voluntary coma to have an operation to replace the valve but he died.

Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam is streaming on Netflix now. For more from the Backstreet Boys, read about Fallen Idols and what happened to the Carter family. And if it’s true crime you’re interested in, check out how to watch the new Andrew Tate documentary and what happened to Phil Spector.