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‘Greed, power and fame’: inside pop music’s biggest Ponzi scheme
A new Netflix docuseries spotlights Lou Pearlman, the man behind the Backstreet Boys and ‘NSync – and a criminal mastermind
This is the strange, extremely American story of Lou Pearlman, who got the startup money for his boy band empire by crashing his own blimps, and who eventually built a fortune by masterminding what is widely believed to be the longest-running Ponzi scheme in US history. Johnson’s tracing of Pearlman’s arc from father figure to betrayer gives the series a very necessary and potent emotional core, the drummer’s heartfelt testimony driving home the human cost of the mogul’s deceit. Photograph: Courtesy of NetflixOne of the most interesting choices of the docuseries is to essentially deepfake Pearlman by using AI technology to put words from his autobiography, Bands, Brands and Billions, into promo footage of him speaking from home office.
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