James Lance Bass is an American singer, actor, and producer. He grew up in Mississippi and rose to fame as the bass singer for the boy band NSYNC. The band has sold over 70 million records, becoming one of the best-selling boy bands of all time. NSYNC's success led Bass to work in film and television.
He starred in the 2001 film On the Line, which his company, Bacon & Eggs, also produced. Bass later formed a second production company, Lance Bass Productions, as well as a now-defunct music management company, Free Lance Entertainment, a joint venture with Mercury Records.
After NSYNC's PopOdyssey Tour ended in September 2001, Bass moved to Star City, Russia, in a much publicized pursuit of a space tourism seat on a Soyuz space capsule. However, after his financial sponsors backed out, Bass was denied a seat on the mission.
In July 2006, Bass came out as gay in a cover story for People magazine. He was awarded the Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award in October 2006 and released an autobiography, Out of Sync, in October 2007, which debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list.
Early life and education
James Lance Bass was born in Laurel, Mississippi, to James Irvin Bass Jr., a medical technologist, and Diane (née Pulliam), a middle school mathematics, English, and career discovery teacher. Along with his older sister, Stacy, Bass grew up in adjacent Ellisville, Mississippi, and was raised as a Southern Baptist. Bass has described his family as devoutly Christian and conservative, and has said that his childhood was "extremely happy". Shortly after, Bass attended space camp in Titusville, Florida, and aspired to attend college and study engineering, with the hope that he would one day work for NASA.
When Bass was 11 years old, his father was transferred to a different hospital, and the family moved to Clinton, Mississippi. the youngest child of former longtime Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale. Bass joined the Mississippi Show Stoppers, a statewide music group sponsored by the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum, and the Attaché Show Choir, a national-award-winning competitive show choir group at Clinton High School. He was also a member of a seven-man vocal group named Seven Card Stud, which competed at state fairs and performed at several social and political events for Senator Trent Lott. However, Bass later said that his primary focus during high school was singing, and when reflecting on it, he remembers "hardly anything" about academia. Timberlake's vocal coach (who had worked with Bass during his time as a Mississippi Show Stopper) recommended Bass as a replacement. Bass was accepted into the group after auditioning in front of the other bandmembers, and soon left school to move to Orlando, Florida and rehearse full-time. Bass has said that he did not know how to dance before he joined NSYNC, and therefore found much of the group's choreography difficult to learn.
NSYNC sued Pearlman and his record company, Trans Continental, for defrauding the group of more than 50% of their earnings, rather than his original promise of receiving only one-sixth of the profits. The injunction was thrown out of court
In March 2000, NSYNC released No Strings Attached, which became the fastest-selling record of all time, selling 1.1 million copies in its first day of release. which scored the second highest first-week album sales ever, trumped only by the group's previous album. NSYNC went on to sell over 56 million records worldwide. In 2002, the group announced that they would be taking a "hiatus", during which Timberlake began to record solo material. NSYNC has not recorded new material since, and Bass has stated that he feels the group has officially disbanded.
In 2007, Bass said he had faith Timberlake would return after six months off to record another album with NSYNC, and that he felt betrayed by Timberlake's 2004 decision to pursue his solo career instead.
Free Lance Entertainment
In 2000, Bass formed a music management company named Free Lance Entertainment, which was a joint venture with Mercury Nashville, a division of Mercury Records. Edwards began touring with NSYNC as an opening act in the fall of 2000, However, Free Lance soon folded after disappointing sales of Edwards's debut album, Reach.
Acting
Film and television
Bass guest-starred on The WB drama series 7th Heaven, playing Rick Palmer, a love interest for Beverley Mitchell's character, Lucy. The following year, while NSYNC was in the midst of recording Celebrity, Bass received his first starring role in the 2001 motion picture On the Line. Bass played Kevin, a man who falls in love with a woman on a Chicago train and begins a search to find her again.
The film was produced by Bass's production company, A Happy Place (later renamed Bacon & Eggs), and it featured appearances by Jerry Stiller, Al Green, Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, former WWE wrestler Chyna, and Bass's bandmates Timberlake, Kirkpatrick and Fatone, the latter in a major role.
Despite heavy marketing towards NSYNC teen fans, the film was a commercial failure, grossing only US$4.2 million domestically despite its $10-million budget. The film, along with Bass's acting, was poorly received by critics.
After On the Line, Bass appeared in Zoolander and Wes Craven's Cursed as himself, and he played a wedding singer in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry. Bass has also lent his voice to several animated television programs, such as Robot Chicken and Disney's Kim Possible, Handy Manny and Higglytown Heroes. Bass made an appearance in the 2008 film Tropic Thunder. As a guest star in the 2013 Gravity Falls episode "Boyz Crazy", Bass plays in the boy band, Sev'ral Timez (which is a parody of NSYNC). In 2014, Bass guest starred on an episode of the Comedy Central series Review, in which he visited space along with the show's lead character.
Video games
Bass voiced the Final Fantasy VII character Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts. He ended his run in Hairspray on January 6, 2008.
Bass and his mother competed in 2017 with other duos in the FOX reality cooking series My Kitchen Rules, and were the runners-up.
In 2020, Lance appeared with friend Joey Fatone on Meredith Vieira's syndicated program, 25 Words or Less (season 1, episodes 121–123).
In April 2021, Bass became a panelist for the new TV series Unicorn Hunters, a business investment show where he and other judges determine whether or not to invest in start-ups and other companies with high valuation potential.
Radio
Bass hosted Dirty Pop with Lance Bass, a daily evening drive time radio show focusing on pop culture and entertainment news on OutQ, an LGBTQ-geared station on Sirius XM. Bass was also the host of the weekly "Pop2Kountdown" on Pop2K, which counts down the 30 biggest hits from that week from a different year in the 2000s.
Podcast
On January 3, 2023, Bass released the trailer for his podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The first episode aired on January 9, 2023, in which he interviewed former bandmate JC Chasez of NSYNC.
In February, he began releasing episodes for another podcast, The Last Soviet, describing the story of Sergei Krikalev's time on the Mir space station during the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as Bass's own experience training at Star City.
Dancing with the Stars
Bass was a contestant on season 7 of Dancing with the Stars and was paired with swing dance champ Lacey Schwimmer. Bass and Schwimmer reached the grand finale in competition and finished in third place.
{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible" style="float:left;"
|- style="text-align:Center; ;"
! rowspan="2"| Week #
! rowspan="2"| Dance/Song
! colspan="3"| Judges' score
! rowspan="2"| Result
|- style="text-align:center; background:#ccc;"
| style="width:10%; "|Inaba
| style="width:10%; "|Goodman
| style="width:10%; "|Tonioli
|-
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|1, Night 1
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|Cha-Cha-Cha/"Jumpin' Jack Flash"
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|8
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|6
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|8
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|Safe
|- style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"
||1, Night 2
||Quickstep/"Close to Me"
||7
||6
||8
||Safe
|- style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"
||2
||Paso Doble/"I Kissed a Girl"
||7
||6
||7
||Safe
|- style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"
||3
||Viennese Waltz/"Let Me Leave"
||8
||7
||7
||Last to be Called Safe
|- style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"
||4
||Tango/"Disturbia"
||9
||8
||9
||Safe
|- style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"
||5
||West Coast Swing/"Breakin' Dishes"
||7
||7
||7
||Safe
|-
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|6
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|Jive/"Tutti Frutti"<br>Old School Hip Hop/"It Takes Two
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|9<br>No
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|9*<br>Scores
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|9<br>Given
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|Safe
|- style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"
||7
||Rumba/"Your Body Is A Wonderland"<br>Team Cha-Cha-Cha/"Mercy"
||9<br>6
||7<br>7
||9<br>7
||Safe
|-
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|8
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|Foxtrot/"Sweet Pea"<br>Samba/"1 Thing"
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|9<br>8
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|8<br>7
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|9<br>9
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|Safe
|-
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|9<br /><small>Semi-finals</small>
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|Mambo/"Straight to Number One'"<br>Jitterbug/"Jim Dandy"
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|10<br>10
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|9<br>9
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|9<br>10
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|Safe
|-
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|10<br /><small>Finals</small>
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|Samba/"Blame It on the Boogie"<br>Freestyle/"It's Tricky"<br>Jitterbug/"Jim Dandy"
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|9<br>9<br>9
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|8<br>9<br>9
| style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|9<br>9<br>10
! style="text-align:center; background:#faf6f6;"|Third place
|}
Production company
In January 2001, Bass formed his first film production company, A Happy Place, with film producers Rich Hull, Wendy Thorlakson and Joe Anderson. The company was geared towards family-friendly films, After On the Line, A Happy Place changed its name to Bacon & Eggs It was reported that the show will focus on the creation and development of an all-gay boy band. To date no such project has been developed or aired.
In 2008, Bass co-produced The Grand, and Bass' company is reported to be developing a music docudrama about the life of rock bands on tour.
In October 2011, Bass debuted his own boy band called Heart2Heart. In August 2013, Bass became an executive producer of the documentary film Kidnapped for Christ along with Mike C. Manning. The film sheds light on controversial behavior modification methods used on children, sent there by their parents, at an Evangelical Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic. The film was sold to Showtime, to be released on television July 10, 2014.
Personal life
Bass dated actress Danielle Fishel of TV's Boy Meets World throughout 1999 and 2000. Fishel said she was heavily invested in the relationship, commenting that she was "so in love" with Bass. Bass ended the relationship after one year Bass began dating Amazing Race winner Reichen Lehmkuhl in early 2006, a courtship that garnered tabloid coverage and led to Bass's decision to come out. Shortly after his split with Lehmkuhl, Bass briefly dated Brazilian model and LXTV host Pedro Andrade. From August 2007 to March 2008, Bass dated New York-based hairdresser Ben Thigpen. After a year and a half of dating, Bass became engaged to Michael Turchin in September 2013. Bass and Turchin married on December 20, 2014, in Los Angeles.
In a 2006 interview, Bass said he has Attention-Deficit Disorder. In August 2024, he made it known that he has type 1.5 diabetes, which had been misdiagnosed a few years earlier as type 2. Bass's favorite music bands are Aerosmith, the Goo Goo Dolls, and Journey, He is a self-described "huge Dr. Seuss fan", devoting an entire room in his Jackson, Mississippi, estate to Seuss memorabilia. Bass has said he is a Christian and that he regularly attends church, though he considers himself to be non-denominational.
At age 38, Bass was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, an inflammatory immune disease, and took part in an ad campaign by Amgen to raise awareness about the disease.
Sexual orientation
upright|left|thumb|Bass in [[Atlanta, Georgia, October 2007]]
Bass came out as gay in a cover story for People magazine on July 26, 2006. Celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton had also been posting items on his website about Bass's orientation since September 2005, and New York gossip column Page Six ran a blurb on July 12, 2006, that reported a sighting of Bass at a gay bar with his then-boyfriend, Lehmkuhl. In his coming out interview, Bass stated,