Joey Fatone is best known as a member of NSYNC, the iconic boy band that took over the late 1990s and early 2000s with record-breaking albums and sold-out arena tours across the globe. After the group went on hiatus, Fatone stayed in the public eye through television, competing on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ and hosting ‘The Singing Bee.‘ But behind the success, there was a financial reality that Fatone did not see coming. And years after the music stopped, that reality showed up at his front door on Christmas Eve.
Joey Fatone recalls his financial struggles
In a sneak peek from Tuesday’s episode of Investigation Discovery’s new docuseries ‘Boy Band Confidential,’ a project Fatone executive-produced himself, the singer opened up about how close he came to going completely bankrupt after NSYNC went on indefinite hiatus in 2002.At the height of NSYNC’s success, Fatone bought a 10,000-square-foot house on four acres of land. The purchase made sense at the time. The money was coming in, the accountant was confident, and the future looked open.“Money was coming in. I asked my accountant, ‘Hey, are we good?’ ‘Yeah, we’re great.’ ‘I’m OK to buy this house, right?’ He goes, ‘Your kids’ kids’ kids will be fine.’ Now, he was saying that as if money was probably still coming in,” Fatone said in the clip, adding, “You go 10 years later after that conversation, and when I go to a new accountant, I say, ‘Hey man, can you look at my finances and what’s going on?’ And he goes, ‘You need to get out of that house, or you’re gonna go bankrupt.’ I went, ‘I’m sorry, what?'”A decade had passed between that reassurance and that warning. In between, the group had gone quiet, the income had dried up, and nobody had raised a concern until it was almost too late.
Lights Out on Christmas Eve
The moment that put everything into focus happened during the holidays. Fatone had family over at his home. Christmas Eve dinner was being prepared. Cousins, aunts, and his own young family were all gathered when the power went out. The electric bill had not been paid.“There was one point during Christmas they shut off the lights to my house because I didn’t pay the bill,” Fatone shared. He continued, “I almost was gonna go bankrupt. And I have a family. This is when I am married, I have two kids. These are certain things that happen in normal people’s lives as well, but then you have to figure out, for me, how do I do this without the public even watching of what’s going on?”He told Entertainment Weekly that the cutoff happened before the presents were even opened, in the middle of the afternoon while dinner was still being cooked.“It was horrible. I had family over at my house. Good thing I had the water, but the power just went pew,” he recalled. “It was actually in the afternoon. We’re cooking Christmas Eve dinner kind of thing. So all my family was there, cousins and aunts. And I was like, ‘We need to call these people up right now to get this thing back on. This is not smart.'”
How Joey Fatone was left alone
With his financial situation getting worse, Fatone reached out to people he knew, people with significant wealth, hoping someone would help. None of them did.“I was asking people for money,” he shared in the doc, people who “had the most money in life.” Every one of them turned him down, and Fatone was left with no option but to “put my tail between my legs as a man to try to figure this out.”He sold the house and moved his then-wife, Kelly, and their two daughters, Briahna and Kloey, into his parents’ home. The family lived there for a full year while he worked to rebuild.“I lived in Vegas for almost a year, busted my ass to slowly build back up, kind of a career in a sense,” he said. “And thank goodness, Lord, things were able to roll. Things came out better.”
The guidance Joey Fatone never got
When reflecting on how things fell apart, Fatone points to a lack of financial guidance during the years when it mattered most. The people around him kept telling him everything was fine.“I was never taught anything as far as financials and what you really need to do,” Fatone said before sharing, “And the [accountant] that I had was not the brightest person to help me out. They were always the ones going, ‘Don’t worry, you’re gonna be fine. You’re making so much money.”
Joey Fatone’s message of hope
His experience is one of several candid accounts featured across ‘Boy Band Confidential,’ a docuseries that looks at the full arc of boy band fame, what the industry looked like from the inside, and what life looked like once the spotlight moved on. Fatone said the series does not avoid the difficult parts, but it does not end there either.“You see the end of the doc, how everybody does have an outcome, and I like how it’s positive. It’s not 100 percent all positive. Let’s be real. It’s life, and people are still going through the struggles mentally and physically. But everybody has literally gone, ‘You know what? I was a teen then. I’ve learned certain things. I know I have to get over these certain humps and keep moving forward,'” Fatone mentioned. “And I think that’s, for me, one of the other stories to get out there, to go, ‘You know what? There’s always light at the end of the tunnel, no matter what way or which way you go.‘ Even me almost filing for bankruptcy.”The ‘Boy Band Confidential’ finale airs Tuesday, April 14, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Investigation Discovery. Episodes are also available to stream on HBO Max.