Lance Bass Would 'Cry Every Night' as a Gay Youth; Being a Boy Band Sex Symbol Felt Like 'God's Little Joke'

Lance Bass recalled how painful – and dangerous – growing up gay in a rejecting religious environment felt, and how he "tricked himself" into thinking he loved the women he dated during an appearance on the Dec. 3 edition of the podcast "Politickin,'" which is hosted by the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, and Doug Hendrickson.

The Mississippi native spoke to knowing from a very young age – "since I was, you know, five years old" – that he was gay, but feeling that coming out could be potentially life-ending in a place like his home state, "where there's not one... out person at all," People Magazine relayed.

It wasn't just the environment at large giving him those messages; he heard it at home, too, where the narrative was that being gay "was caused by the devil..."

The pop star described the anguish of being indoctrinated with such virulently homophobic beliefs.

"As a very religious person growing up, you know, I wanted to do everything I could not to go burn in hell," the 45-year-old father of two, who is now happily married to husband Michael Turchin, recalled. "I would cry, like, every night."

"You know, I would pray, 'Please wake up not being gay. Please wake up being attracted to girls.' Which is, like, a sad thing to put on a little kid."

It was tough, too, being closeted during his tenure with *NSYNC, which, People said, was "one of the biggest musical acts of the late '90s and early 2000s." The experience of being a gay male pop icon with thousands of female fans was, Bass reckoned, "God's little joke."

Still, he attempted to put on a straight face – to the extent that he tried to fool himself about who he really was.

"You would trick yourself into thinking this is what love is, right?" Bass said of dating women, one of them being Danielle Fishel. "And I thought I loved these girls that I, you know, dated."

That ended predictably: "And then you just wake up one day, you're like, 'No, uh-uh, this is not it.'"

People Mag wrote about how Bass came out in its own pages, with a 2006 cover story. That edition was emblazoned with "I'M GAY" in large yellow capital letters, making for an unambiguous embrace of authenticity.

Addressing his public coming out, Bass told Newsom and Hendrickson, "It was a crazy scary situation because all the examples I've ever had of anyone coming out, especially in entertainment, was that it's a career killer."

Though his fans were supportive, the entertainment industry was less so. "The career definitely changed, and they were right about that. Like, it was definitely a career killer," Bass said, going on to recount that with the band being "on hiatus" at the time, he was looking to pivot to acting. He'd been signed for a TV pilot with the CW network before he came out. Afterwards, he said, "they were like, 'We can't do the show anymore.' Like, 'They have to believe that you're straight to play a straight character.'"

"And every casting director I knew, they're like, 'Lance, we can't cast you because they can't look past – You're too famous for being gay now that they can't look at you as anything other than that.'"

"So, I lost everything," Bass said, sharing that "agents... everyone just kind of like kind of fell off. Like, 'I don't know what we can do with you now.'"

"And so yeah, I had to completely just restart and rebrand at that moment."

The story is different now, and those same casting directors know it.

"They're all kind of like, 'Yeah, that was really dumb.' And they've actually cast me a lot of things since, which is really funny and ironic," Bass told the podcast hosts, People reported.

"But you know, I never hold grudges at all."