Lance Bass: NSYNC didn't make much money

Lance Bass made "hardly any money" from *NSYNC.

The 47-year-old singer - who was part of the group with JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick and Justin Timberlake from 1995 until their indefinite hiatus in 2002 - and his bandmates lived off just $35 a day in the early years of the band and their ultimate earnings were far below what many people expect.

Speaking on The Zach Sang Show, he said: “We had a per diem: $35 a day.

“Our first cheque was a $10,000 cheque after years of number one albums, sellout tours. I don’t know how many millions they made off of merchandise because merchandise was insane.

“And then they finally gave us a cheque for $10,000. You’re like, ‘Oh, thanks.’ We should be grateful for that, been working for free for two, three years now.”

And even now, the Cocktail Wars host insisted the band's back catalogue doesn't generate a lot of income for the quintet.

He added: “You get residuals, for sure, but it’s not much.

“It’s so weird how people think I’m so filthy rich from *NSYNC. No. Not at all. I did well after *NSYNC and I’m very proud of everything I did after that, but I didn’t make money with *NSYNC hardly at all.”

However, the Bye Bye Bye hitmakers' record label and their former manager, the late Lou Pearlman - who was sentenced to 25 years in prison on charges of conspiracy, money laundering and making false statements during bankruptcy proceedings in 2008 - allegedly did make a lot of money from the group.

Lance said of Lou: “One of the biggest scam artists of all time, made a lot.”

He admitted that "at one time" he carried a lot of resentment towards the executive and the band's record label, particularly because the group didn't feel there was anyone around to protect them.

He said: “I was mad at the adults in the room. The adults in the room saying, ‘You’re just a kid, you’re fine. Dance, land on your knees. You’re young, you don’t need to sleep, you’re a kid.’

“Well, who cares if you’re young? You still need to make a living and set yourself up for the future ‘cause most of these cases, it’s a finite time of being able to do something like that, and no one set us up for life after that. We had to do it all ourselves after it was over.”

After *NSYNC went their separate ways, they "had to start over" amid the "stigma" of being in a boy band, which "was not at the time a good thing to be in this industry."

Lance added: “You were looked at as less than, you were made fun of. So try parlaying a career after being in a band like that where no one took you seriously.”