These Secrets About *NSYNC Ain’t No Lie

1. After Chris Kirkpatrick, 23 at the time, was passed over for the Backstreet Boys—the first instance of shady impresario Lou Pearlman capturing boy band lightning in a bottle—he told Pearlman he was still interested in being in a group.

Pearlman agreed to put up the money if Kirkpatrick did the work of finding other guys to join him, and so the sifting through demos and watching hours of tapes began. They happened upon The All New-Mickey Mouse Club alum and aspiring singer Justin Timberlake, 14, who recommended fellow former Mouseketeer JC Chasez, 19. ("JC was the cool older guy, and Justin wanted to be just like him," co-star Christina Aguilera remembered to Rolling Stone.) 

They continued the search in Orlando, and Kirkpatrick thought of Joey Fatone, 18, who he knew from his days performing at Universal Studios. But they still needed a deeper voice.

Timberlake's vocal coach advised them to check out this kid from Mississippi, Lance Bass, who flew down to Florida on Oct. 1, 1995. Pearlman and Timberlake picked the appropriately named 16-year-old up at the airport in a black Rolls Royce.

Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough, who knew Kirkpatrick way back when, gave himself a little pat on the back later on for all this serendipity, telling Pop Crush in 2015 that BSB asked Pearlman "to help [Chris] out in any way that he could and still fulfill his dream. He went back with Chris and formed a group and little by little that spun off to eventually be *NSYNC."