*NSYNC Members Then and Now — Plus Rumors of More New Music!
All hope is not “Gone” for more music from this boy band fab five!
It may have been too good to be true when Justin Timberlake dropped some hints recently about he and his fellow *NSYNC members — JC Chasez, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick — working on new music together. The boy band — who made millions swoon throughout the 1990s and early 2000s — released their last studio album in 2001, but there is renewed hope.
“We’ve been in the studio,” Timberlake floated to Kelly Clarkson on her daytime chat show, noting that “there may be a little something in the future” from him and the rest of the crew, who blew the crowd’s — and Taylor Swift’s — minds when they reunited at MTV’s VMAs last September to award her with best pop video honors.
Fans of the fab five went wild over the prospect of new music, signaling they’d be ready to buy, buy, buy whatever the guys were creating. After all, the *NSYNC members did sound great when they re-teamed last year for “Better Place,” a track on the Trolls Band Together soundtrack, which Timberlake has sweetly described as “a love letter to our fans.”
Timberlake noted to Clarkson that “that was fun,” adding that “it’s kind of crazy. There’s so much that picks up right where it left off as far as chemistry.” The singer then went on to say that “we’ve been in the studio. So there may be a little something in the future,” though more recent buzz on the internet alleges he’s just teasing a collaborative track on his forthcoming solo album in March, and not a full-on *NSYNC members album or tour.
That hasn’t stopped the public — and some *NSYNC members themselves— from keeping hope alive for more projects from the band. “It’s as if we died and came back to life,” Fatone told OK Magazine about “Better Place” debuting at No. 25 when it was released. “I didn’t think it was going to have the magnitude it had.”
So while nothing seems out of the question, nothing seems too imminent, either. “People are obviously yelling and screaming for a tour, but there’s a lot of things that come into play before that could happen,” Fatone explained. “There’s five guys — some of us are married, some have kids, some may not want to do it. We have to have that conversation and talk about what we do now that [‘Better Place’] is out there.”
It’s tearin’ up our hearts that 2024 doesn’t seem likely for any formal *NSYNC members reunion tour, though the guys have to know that everyone wants them back. While we patiently wait, check out what the *NSYNC members have been up to own their own.
Justin Timberlake
The “it’s gonna be maaay” vocalist rose to fame as an *NSYNC member, having previously appeared on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club with fellow future stars Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Ryan Gosling, and Keri Russell, as well as his future bandmate JC.
His post-*NSYNC music career has brought him 10 Grammy awards and a heap of success, including such hits as 2002’s “Cry Me a River,” 2006’s “SexyBack” and “What Goes Around Comes Around,” and 2016’s “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” which was nominated for an Oscar.
Outside of music, he’s conquered Hollywood as well, appearing in such films as 2010’s The Social Network, and 2011’s In Time, Friends With Benefits, and Bad Teacher. He’s even earned four Emmys for his work — both comedic and musical — on Saturday Night Live (anyone remember “D— in a Box?”).
The singer’s sixth and most recent solo album, Everything I Thought It Was, comes out March 15. He performed two of its tracks, the debut single “Selfish” and “Sanctified,” which features Tobe Nwigwe, on Saturday Night Live in January, when he appeared as the show’s musical guest. Come April, he’ll launch his Forget Tomorrow world tour in Vancouver, Canada.
Timberlake has added fatherhood to his long list of credits, as he and wife Jessica Biel have two sons, Silas and Phineas. “It’s no longer just about me,” he wrote about being a husband and dad in his 2018 book Hindsight: & All the Things I Can’t See in Front of Me. “It’s terrifying. It’s invigorating. It’s more meaningful than anything I’ve ever been a part of.”
JC Chasez
Just like Justin Timberlake, Chasez appeared on The All-New Mickey Mouse Club, conquered pop radio with his fellow *NSYNC members, and then made a go of it as a solo artist. He had a solo single called “Blowin’ Me Up (With Her Love)” on the soundtrack to the film Drumline in 2002, and then his first and only album on his own, 2004’s Schizophrenic, produced two singles: “Some Girls (Dance With Women)” and “All Day Long I Dream About Sex.”
Though he never matched Justin’s commercial success, it’s not for a lack of talent. “In my opinion, he had the best voice out of all of us,” Timberlake has said of JC, adding, “Out of all the boy bands, call ’em what you will, he was the one that could out-sing all of us.”
In the years that followed, Chasez has been a much sought-after songwriter for acts such as the Backstreet Boys, Sugababes, and David Archuleta, and in 2008 he was a judge on MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew.
On stage, Chasez briefly toured in 2014 as Pontius Pilate in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar, and last year, he shared with People that he’s been writing and creating two musicals of his own.
“I’ve got two of them kind of working at the same time,” he noted, “and so with these musicals, my voice is on them. My voice is going to be one of the characters.” And as far as his voice being on more projects with his fellow *NSYNC members? “We might have another [song] after ‘Better Place.’ We might have been cooking a little bit. Just a little bit,” Chasez recently told Billboard, noting that he also appears on “Teardrops,” the new single from former One Direction member Liam Payne that’s out March 1.
Lance Bass *NSYNC Members
As a young boy in Mississippi, Lance Bass caught the performing bug singing with his church choir and other groups, including a seven-member vocal outfit called Seven Card Stud, which performed at state fairs.
After hitting it big as one of the *NSYNC members, he remained in the entertainment business, launching two production companies as well as a now shuttered music management venture.
In 2001, while still in *NSYNC, he co-starred with Joey Fatone in the film On the Line, and he also made appearances in 2001’s Zoolander, 2007’s I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and the TV show 7th Heaven. He also served as a celebrity judge on the NBC competition show America’s Most Talented Kid in 2003.
Before that, in 2002, Bass, a longtime space enthusiast, even traveled to Russia to train to be a cosmonaut. He planned on being part of a mission to the International Space Station, though issues with his financial backing prevented him ever from blasting off.
Bass instead bounced over to Broadway in 2004, portraying Corny Collins in Hairspray, and he also got a chance to showcase his musicality on Dancing With the Stars in 2008, finishing in third place with his partner Lacey Schwimmer.
The singer, who came out in 2006 and released a revealing a New York Times bestselling autobiography titled Out of Sync in 2007, married husband Michael Turchin in 2014. Their nuptials were aired as part of an E! special in 2015, and they are fathers to twins Violet and Alexander, who were born in October 2021.
He hosted Bachelor in Paradise in 2021 as well, and he started hosting two podcasts in 2023: Frosted Tips With Lance Bass, which focuses on pop music, and The Last Soviet, about Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev.
As the father of twins who were born on Friday the 13th, he’s also written a Halloween-themed kids book called Trick or Treat on Scary Street, which is due out this July.
Joey Fatone *NSYNC Members
New Yorker Joey Fatone was drawn into music growing up the son of a father who sang doo-wop, so his career as one of the *NSYNC members makes perfect sense. After his family relocated to Orlando, Florida, he met Chris Kirkpatrick when they both were performers at Universal Studios, and Kirkpatrick brought him into the project that was soon to become *NSYNC.
Fatone — who’d co-starred with Lance Bass in 2001’s On the Line during their band days — also went on to land roles in 2002’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 2016’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, and 2023’s My Big Fat Wedding 3, as well as that franchise’s 2003 TV sitcom, My Big Fat Greek Life. Other TV and movie roles followed, as did stints on Broadway, including in Rent and Little Shop of Horrors, with other regional musical roles in The Producers, 42nd Street and Rock of Ages.
And even before Bass did the same, Fatone enjoyed a thrilling run on Dancing With the Stars, placing second in 2007 with his partner Kym Johnson, returning for an all-star season in 2012. He also hosted the Game Show Network’s Common Knowledge for three seasons, beginning in 2019.
In 2004, Fatone married Kelly Baldwin, a girl he went to high school with, and the couple — who divorced in 2020 — share two daughters, Briahna and Kloey. Now reportedly wed to Izabel Araujo, he is currently set to go on co-headlining tour with AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys for their A Legendary Night Tour, which kicks off on March 15.
“I’ve known AJ as long as I’ve known my own band members,” Fatone said in a release. “We’ve worked together in the past on one-off projects here and there but never had the opportunity to create something together. This tour gives us the chance to combine the best of both musical worlds.”
Chris Kirkpatrick *NSYNC Members
As the child of a single mom who struggled at time with homelessness, Chris Kirkpatrick moved around a lot with his siblings while growing up. His mother and other relatives had backgrounds in music, which clearly rubbed off on Chris, who began landing roles in school musicals and started to find an escape in performing.
While pursuing a degree in music in Florida after he graduated, he became an entertainer at Universal Studios where he met and befriended Joey Fatone, bringing him into the group he’d created with Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez.
After *NSYNC disbanded, Kirkpatrick performed with an alternative rock band he formed called Nigel’s 11. He also found success in the world of voiceovers, portraying Chip Skylark on the hit animated series The Fairly OddParents from 2002 to 2009.
In 2007, he teamed up with a bunch of other former boy band artists for VH1’s Mission: Man Band, in which he and LFO’s Rich Cronin, Color Me Badd’s Bryan Abrams, and 98 Degrees’ Jeff Timmons formed an adult boy band called Sureshot.
He also competed on Gone Country, a 2008 reality show on CMT on which former artists from various genres were challenged to record country songs. Proving he was a reality TV power player, Kirkpatrick also made a splash on Celebrity Big Brother in 2022, the same year he suited up as the Hummingbird on The Masked Singer for that series’ eighth season.
Kirkpatrick married Karly Skladany in 2013 with his former *NSYNC members all there to help him celebrate. Kirkpatrick and his wife now have a 6-year-old son, Nash. “He’s starting to [understand what I do]. But I think he thinks that it’s normal,” the singer — who’s been a headliner and host of the ongoing Pop 2000 Tour, which features Ryan Cabrera, OTOWN, LFO, and BBMAK — told US Weekly last year of his little boy. “He’s like, ‘Oh yeah, this is a regular thing. Everybody’s dad does this. Or people stop everyone’s dad everywhere and ask for pictures.’”
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