NSYNC‘s Lance Bass has revealed that a TV show he was filming was suddenly scrapped after he came out in 2006.
Reflecting on that time of his life, the pop star has shared that a pilot he was planning to shoot for television network The CW was unexpectedly axed after the article on his coming out was dropped.
‘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”,’ he told the Politickin’ podcast.
‘Every casting director I knew, they’re like, “Lance, we can’t cast you because they can’t look past… You’re too famous for being gay now that they can’t look at you as anything other than that.”
‘So, I lost everything.’
Bass opened up about his sexuality in 2006 as part of a cover feature for People Magazine. It was around this time that The CW had launched, shortly after the merging of networks The WB and UPN.
Bass was a part of NSYNC for just under a decade – joining in 1995 and releasing music and touring with them up until 2002. Variety highlights that his first acting role was in 2001, when he landed a spot on the 2001 romantic comedy On The Line.
While he added in the interview that he found it harder to find work after coming out as gay, the former NSYNC singer has appeared contestant in the seventh season of Dancing With The Stars, and also joined the Broadway production of Hairspray.
