Lance Bass is reflecting on how coming out led to the cancellation of a CW pilot he was set to star in.
The singer, 45, opened up about experiencing some professional drawbacks after publicly revealing his sexuality, noting that he “lost everything” after he shared his story. (Bass came out in a July 2006 cover story for People.)
“It was a crazy scary situation because all the examples I’ve ever had of anyone coming out, especially in entertainment, was that it’s a career killer,” Bass revealed during the Tuesday, December 3, episode of the “Politickin‘” podcast.
He told hosts Gavin Newsom, Marshawn Lynch and Doug Hendrickson, “The career definitely changed, and they were right about that. Like, it was definitely a career killer.”
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Though Bass had a few acting gigs during his NSYNC days – including a guest-starring role on a episode of 7th Heaven in 2000 and a starring role in the 2001 romantic comedy, On the Line – the Finding Prince Charming host was looking to further his career after the boy band went on hiatus in 2002.
“I had a sitcom, you know, with The CW at the time,” he said. “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.’”
Us Weekly has reached out to The CW for comment, but did not immediately hear back. (The CW – which was formed in 2006 as a merger of The WB and UPN – changed administrations in 2022 when it was acquired by Nexstar, which had no ties to the network at the time of Bass’ pilot.)
Bass went on to share that the axed series was just the beginning of having a difficult time finding work in the industry after coming out.
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“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,’” he explained, noting that he had to “completely just restart and rebrand” once “everything kind of fell off.”
Despite experiencing hardships in Hollywood during his career, Bass said he has since worked with some of those same casting directors, who called their decision to not work with him earlier “really dumb.”
He added, “They’ve actually cast me a lot of things since, which is really funny and ironic. But you know, I never hold grudges at all. I’m very understanding. I get it. Business is business is business. It sucks, but I never can hold grudges.”
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In addition to his early 2000s roles, Bass has also appeared in numerous TV shows and movies, including Cursed, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Valley Peaks, Drop Dead Diva, The Rookie and How I Met Your Father. He’s also lent his voice to animated productions like Kim Possible and Trolls Band Together, has appeared on Vanderpump Rules and served as host of ’90s House alongside Christina Milian.
The boy-bander also competed on season 7 of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars, taking third place behind Warren Sapp and Brooke Burke, and starred on Broadway as Corny Collins in Hairspray.
