Lance Bass attends the DETAILS magazine 15th anniversary celebration on September 24, 2015 in New York City. AFP
Singer Lance Bass has admitted that he had experienced sexual harassment during his teenage years.
Bass made the admission on The Meredith Vieira Show Wednesday while having a discussion on the recent claims of actress Ashley Jude that she was sexually harassed by a Hollywood mogul sometime in 1997.
“This also happens to men, too. It has happened to me,” Bass told his fellow panelists in the show.
The 36-year old actor said that the harassment happened when he was a teenager during his early days with the American boy band NSYNC.
“It happened to me when I was 16 or 17 years old, when we started there was someone that we worked with that was inappropriately touching us,” he said.
“I was even aware, then, at 16, that this guy was a pedophile and he was touching me oddly,” the singer added.
Bass, however, said he didn’t feel victimized because he was aware of it.
“As a kid, it was odd, but I’m glad that we were aware of it, and we didn’t feel victimized at the time,” he said.
The singer did not mention any name but reports said this is similar to his narration in 2014 about NSYNC manager Lou Pearlman.
“I’d hear rumors that he would molest the boys before they would even get into the groups. I don’t know how much of that is true, but to me, where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Bass told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014.
“He’d always grab our arms and feel our muscles and go: ‘Hey boys, you workin’ out? Yeahhhh!’” Bass said.
The singer, however, didn’t think the touching as “crossing any line.”
Pearlman is currently serving 25 years in prison due to an investment scam. NC/RAM