Lance Bass

Lance Bass is an American singer, actor, and producer born on May 4, 1979, in Laurel, Mississippi, to James Irvin Bass Jr., a medical technologist, and Diane Bass, a middle school teacher of mathematics, English, and career discovery. He grew up alongside his older sister, Stacy, first in Ellisville, Mississippi, and later in Clinton, Mississippi, after his father transferred to a different hospital. Raised as a Southern Baptist in a family he has described as devoutly Christian and conservative, Bass developed an early fascination with space, traveling to Cape Canaveral, Florida, at age 9 to witness a live Space Shuttle launch and subsequently attending space camp in Titusville, Florida. He aspired to study engineering and work for NASA.

Bass began singing in his Baptist church choir after the family's move to Clinton and was encouraged to audition for local performance groups by his childhood best friend, Darren Dale. He joined the Mississippi Show Stoppers, a statewide music group sponsored by the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum, and participated in the Attaché Show Choir, a nationally competitive show choir at Clinton High School. He also performed with a seven-man vocal group called Seven Card Stud, which appeared at state fairs and at events for Senator Trent Lott. At Clinton High School, Bass was elected vice president of his junior class.

In 1995, during his junior year of high school, Bass received a call from Justin Timberlake and Timberlake's mother, Lynn Harless, asking whether he would audition for the pop group NSYNC following the departure of the group's original bass singer, Jason Galasso. A vocal coach who had worked with Bass during his time as a Mississippi Show Stopper recommended him as a replacement. After auditioning before the other members, Bass was accepted and relocated to Orlando, Florida, to rehearse full-time. Jan Bolz, president of BMG's German division, initially sought to have Bass replaced, citing his dancing, but founding member Chris Kirkpatrick refused to accept a recording contract without him. The group subsequently moved to Munich, Germany, to record their debut album with BMG and began extensive touring in Europe, with Bass's mother leaving her job to accompany the group as a chaperone while Bass was still a minor. NSYNC was signed to the American label RCA in 1997, and their first single, "I Want You Back," generated significant radio play in the United States.

The group's rise was accompanied by a legal dispute with Lou Pearlman, who had originally assembled NSYNC. The band sued Pearlman and his company, Trans Continental, alleging he had taken more than 50 percent of their earnings rather than the agreed one-sixth share. Pearlman and RCA countersued for $150 million, citing breach of contract, but the injunction was dismissed and NSYNC ultimately signed with Jive Records. In March 2000, the group released No Strings Attached, which sold 1.1 million copies on its first day, making it the fastest-selling record of all time at that point. Their follow-up album, Celebrity, released in 2001, achieved the second-highest first-week sales ever recorded, surpassed only by No Strings Attached. NSYNC went on to sell over 70 million records worldwide, establishing the group as one of the best-selling boy bands of all time. In 2002, the group announced a hiatus, and Bass has since stated that he considers NSYNC to have officially disbanded, though in September 2023 the members reunited at the MTV Video Music Awards and released a new song, "Better Place," as part of the soundtrack to the film Trolls Band Together.

Beyond his work with NSYNC, Bass pursued ventures in film, television, and business. In 2000, he founded Free Lance Entertainment, a music management company structured as a joint venture with Mercury Nashville, a division of Mercury Records, employing his parents and sister as talent scouts. The company folded after disappointing sales. He starred in the 2001 film On the Line, which was also produced by his production company, Bacon & Eggs. He later established a second production company, Lance Bass Productions.

Following the conclusion of NSYNC's PopOdyssey Tour, Bass relocated to Star City, Russia, in pursuit of a space tourism seat aboard a Soyuz space capsule. He completed several months of cosmonaut training and was certified by both NASA and the Russian Space Program, with plans to join the TMA-1 mission to the International Space Station. His seat on the mission was ultimately denied after his financial sponsors withdrew their support.

Bass made his Broadway debut in 2002, appearing in the musical Hairspray. In July 2006, he came out as gay in a cover story for People magazine. That October, he received the Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award. In October 2007, he published an autobiography titled Out of Sync, which debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list.