Life 'Out of Sync'

Oct. 22, 2007 — -- In the late 1990s, Lance Bass rocketed to international superstardom with the boy band *NSync. The five singers graced almost every teen magazine cover and preteen bedroom wall.

A bevy of hit singles and highly choreographed dance moves helped Bass and his band mates become household names. But even as his fame grew, Bass hid a secret.

While tweens and teens screamed for him and dreamed of being his girlfriend, Bass hid his true identity. Later, after the band disbanded, Bass finally came out with the truth: He was gay.

Now, in his new book, "Out of Sync," Bass talks about his struggle to come out to the public, the well-publicized problems with former manager Lou Pearlman and what it was like being in the world's biggest and hottest band.

Read an excerpt of his book below.

I've known I was different ever since I was five years old. For one thing, I had what I guess you could call innocent crushes on boys.

I knew it was wrong; at least that's what I was taught by my family, my church, my friends, my whole world. That was the overwhelming message I kept on getting. How could I ever admit to what everyone else believed was such a bad, even biblically evil thing, especially to my parents and grand-parents, who doted so much on me and made me feel like I was a little prince?

I understood in my heart it wasn't wrong to be gay, but I also knew instinctively that I had to play the game in order to live in the world I was born into. In all honesty it didn't seem much of a problem to me when I was growing up in Mississippi. There were girls around. I even dated a few, but only because that's what everyone else did. I never thought about it, or felt funny doing it. As for dating guys, it never even entered my thinking that such a thing was possible. At least not in Mississippi.

That's where I was born, in 1979: the heart of the Deep South. My parents liked the name Lance, so that's what they decided to call me. They'd had it picked out for their firstborn son even before they were married. If they had a boy, they'd agreed, he'd be James Lance Bass, after my dad, James Irvin Bass, Jr. My parents considered making me a III. Thank heavens they settled on Lance!

I was raised in the town of Ellisville, about seven minutes outside of Laurel. Despite my early sexual feelings, I had an extremely happy childhood. I loved my parents, Jim and Diane. I loved my sister, Stacy. And I loved singing in the church choir. My dad, was a medical technologist in the Ellisville hospital. I more or less grew up in hospitals, which is why to this day things like having blood work done never freaks me out.

We were a completely traditional Southern family. I was brought up strict Baptist, in the steep shadow of the church where, as it happens, I sang for the very first time. As far back as I can remember, I loved to sing. No one in my family was ever in show business, but my mother's beautiful singing voice put me to sleep each night as a little boy. Even when I'd go off with my dad and grandfather on pheasant hunts in Texas, my mom would tape-record a lullaby so I'd be able to fall asleep in my sleeping bag.

My granddaddy's brother, Uncle Julius, lives near Cape Canaveral. When I was nine years old my daddy and granddaddy took me to visit him and that's when I saw my first live space launch. I'll never forget the sight of it! We were there with thousands of people, right near the gigantic count-down clock, the shuttle in the background. Everyone counted down together as the rumble started and the rockets ignited and the whole thing started rising, shooting straight up into the sky. It was spectacular to think that there were people in there who were actually going into space! That was the day I decided I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up.

It was something I talked about all the time. Finally, when I turned ten, my parents sent me away for a week one summer to Space Camp at Cape Canaveral. I was certain from then on my future was to be involved with space. It was the sky, not the stage that first captured my creative imagination with such an extraordinary display of wonder, probably because singing just came so naturally to me.

My mom taught sixth grade math at the elementary school I went to and she remembers that as a toddler I'd love singing for anybody in our living room who came to visit. I used to work for hours making up little shows for my parents and their friends then get all dressed up in costumes that I put together, sometimes performing with my sister. When I was ten, dad was transferred to the town of Clinton, in central Mississippi, so the entire family just picked up and moved everything we had from one house to another. Dad happened to know this family in Clinton that was moving to Ellisville, so we simply traded houses. I have to say the move was both exciting and traumatic for me; I was happy moving to a new place but sad that I had to say good-bye to all my friends. I knew I was going to especially miss my best friend and next-door neighbor, Brett. He and I had become close playing in the woods that surrounded Ellisville. To me, Clinton was, by comparison, a major metropolis. I was a little scared and I felt a touch of loneliness, a feeling I wouldn't fully understand, or accept, for years to come. Even back then, I didn't know how to reach out with my real inner self. I was much better at holding myself back and pretending that things didn't bother me when they did. That was the way of life I had learned, to hold feelings in for the sake of…well for the sake of what, I'm really not sure.

I started fifth grade in Clinton and made the adjustment to my new school fairly easily. Soon enough I had new pals and was enjoying my new life, In seventh grade, when I was twelve, I met a boy named Darren Dale. He quickly became one of my best friends. We did a lot of things together, like fishing and going to the movies, but one thing we really shared was a love of music. That was crucial to me, because music was the only way I had to truly express my feelings while still being able to keep them contained. Other people's songs became vehicles, free rides, in a way. I was only the messenger, or so I wanted people to believe, dressing up the words and music of someone else to make them sound all pretty and sweet. By making the music acceptable I was able to make myself acceptable as well, and for me that was extremely important. I could expose myself and keep myself hidden at the same time.