Billionaire. Lou is a salesman from the drop. He wanted to connect with you, and this was his skill. His belief in himself and his capacity to make you believe. Most people fell for it. We never even questioned if that was real or not. He was very good at being shady. Lou was so charismatic, so sympathetic, everyone wanted to be a part of his world that here created, without realizing he was robbing them blind. It was blimp money that started the whole thing. Thats incredible. Louis j. Pearlman grows up in queens, new york. He was born in 1954. And so right next to where lou pearlman is growing up, coming out of flushing airport, there are these airships that take off. And when lou pearlman is 10 years old, he sees his first Goodyear Blimp. The blimp transforms his life. I saw the Goodyear Blimp flying outside my window, and i was like, what is this thing flying around . It intrigued me. It was the worlds fair at the time and i managed to get a ride on it. I was hooked. I loved flying. Lou was sort of obsessed with aviation and many of his life choices later on actually kind of had an aviation theme. Lou did not grow up as the coolest guy at his school. Lou has a pocket protector. Lou pulls his pants up really high. Lou is not a hipster. I think lou was always a little bit of an outcast. Lou was the kind of person that youre never really sure if hes telling you the truth. Even when hed, like, tell a white lie to somebody in front of me, he would say, can you believe he believed what i just said . I think he became aware of his ability to have people trust him sort of in a haphazard way. Once he became aware of that, he wasnt afraid to use it further. A schemer. And a liar. Thats probably the best way of summing up his personality. He would tell you all these lies and then every once in a while something would be true, but you just didnt know whether or not to believe him. So he used to say that his first cousin, that he was very close to, was Art Garfunkel from simon and garfunkel. When i was 8 years old. I loved playing the guitar. I wanted to get into the guitar because i saw my cousin Art Garfunkel. We all said, oh, thats b. S. , that cant be the case. Its not one thing. He made up so many stories over our friendship. Sure enough, that turned out to be true. He really did know him. Simon and garfunkel were gigantic in the 60s. You probably remember them from sound of silence or bridge over troubled water. They were massive. Art garfunkel sang at his bar mitzvah. I think that was a very formative moment for lou. And so any available object, any tale or backstory that lou could use to convince you that he knew what he was doing, he would use, and maybe the first thing he ever used that way was his actual relationship with Art Garfunkel, his cousin. I was a kid musician in a band. We all had bands. We had a lot of fun. We were playing clubs. Thats where i met lou. It was 1973, 4, the club was full of people doing the walk, including lou pearlman in his leisure suit, polyester by the way. That was the look. I saw them on the side of the stage. And, hey, trying to get my attention, because i was on stage. I love music, you guys are great. We should get together. My cousins Art Garfunkel. That was the calling card. He wanted he and i to be like the reincarnation of simon and garfunkel. But it was a hobby for him, music. You know, hed strum a chord and try to sing, and it wasnt really his thing. Yeah. And arty, if youre listening, in the end, lou, he just wanted to be like you. And we had no idea how much that would drive him to all kinds of things. I went back to finish Queens College and did my thing in accounting. I had to stick with business, because it was so difficult to get into the music business, and i loved it. I got my mba, but most importantly was my love for both. I stayed with aviation. I mean, blimps are kind of cool and interesting, but he was trying to make a business out of it. Lou had this i think in retrospect a rather brilliant idea, which was to use blimps to advertise all kinds of products. He first made a deal with jordache jeans. So jordache, this jeans company, they made jeans that you had to lie flat on the bed and have four guys zip them up for you. The jordache look, the jordache remember . He finds this blimp, but by blimp standards its a kind of a cheap little blimp. But somehow he convinces jordache to put their name on the side of it. And hell put it up. And theyll get all this advertising. Unfortunately he had put so much gold leaf on the outside of the blimp that it crashed in new jersey and only made it a couple of hundred yards. Only one aboard, the pilot, unhurt. A gust of wind that reportedly hurled it to the ground, damaging its landing gear. What does lou do . The blimp cost maybe five figures. Reportedly, lou has insured the blimp for millions. The jordache blimp would have killed most businesses, but lou pearlman is not the kind of person who gives up. He creates this Company Called airship international. Its a publicly traded company. He has shareholders and everything. I think when he got people investing in him, he had a pool of money to keep an appearance now, like what his business was doing was good. But what he had was a pile of investor money that he bought a rolls royce with and a penthouse apartment that made investors feel good. He had two rolls royces that he would drive around the neighborhood with. I dont know if they were his or what. But it had a fake phone in it. Hed be driving, one of them was a convertible and youd see him driving it on his fake phone. I looked at lou sometimes like a tabloid and everything is 10 of the truth and 90 [ bleep ]. But lous a talker, he was a storyteller. And whether these stories were true or not, doesnt really matter in the great sense. What matters is hearing these entrepreneurial stories made you feel more like you wanted to give him your money. Lous blimp business for a while was successful. He leased blimps to mcdonalds. And you can see on the tail, thats the name of our company. Airship international limited. The idea is that hes going to create blimps and people will be able to advertise on the side of these blimps. In addition to the blimps, lou has these other companies. A helicopter service. A charter service. All these things that fly in the sky. Lou was essentially borrowing planes from somebody who owned them or leasing them, and then acting as a middleman who would turn around and rent those planes and charter them. And oftentimes he would take credit for owning those planes. We did charter flights. And we flew Paul Mccartney and wings, rolling stones. Phil collins, madonna. And, lo and behold, new kids on the block. I just didnt know who they were and i was just questioning, how could these kids afford an airplane . And i was told these kids did 200 million in record sales and 800 million in touring and merchandising. I was like, im in the wrong business. Image was everything for lou. His image, if it couldnt be the guy who was in the band, he was the guy who was going to make the band. I want it that way announcer people with type 2 diabetes are excited about the potential of onceweekly ozempic®. In a study with ozempic®, a majority of adults lowered their blood sugar and reached an a1c of less than 7 and maintained it. Oh under 7 . announcer and you may lose weight. In the same oneyear study, adults lost on average up to 12 pounds. Oh up to 12 pounds . announcer a twoyear study showed that ozempic® does not increase the risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attack, stroke, or death. 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Oh oh oh ozempic® announcer if eligible, you may pay as little as 25 per prescription. Ask your Health Care Provider today about onceweekly ozempic®. Save time this season with drive up at target. I feel love just pull up, tap the app, and get everything on your list. So quick, the kids wont even notice. Make your Holiday Shopping easy, and try drive up at target. Tthe bad news . Outhe perfect photo is not. D. Depend® fitflex underwear offers your best comfort and protection guaranteed. Because, perfect or not, lifes better when youre in it. Be there with depend®. Super saturday . Take an extra 15 or 20 off save onits kohls. Ear. Pendant necklaces just 59. 49. Pendant necklaces just 59. 49. And save on cuddl duds fleece sheets. Plus get kohls cash plus snap a free picture with santa on sunday . Find new gifts at every turn at kohls. In the early 1990s, new kids on the block, they were the biggest thing in the world. And teenage girls went bananas for them. They were everywhere. They were dolls, they were towels. They were lunchboxes. The new kids on the block they played the super bowl halftime show. They were a really big pop deal. In 1991, Forbes Magazine said new kids made more money than madonna and michael jackson. But manufactured boy bands have been around forever. With the monkees. Then i saw her face im a believer just as long as you hold me and here was also menudo. Ricky martin was at one point a member. And dont forget new edition. They had bobby brown. But it was the success of new kids that really caught lous attention. Hows my mic . Good . Lou pearlman talked to chris cuomo on 20 20 in 2000. I was invited to come down to one of their shows. All the screaming. I was like, my god, whats going on here . And these girls were buying these tshirts and hats and chains and posters. I love the new kids. I was like, man, this is exciting. I mean, not to mention, okay. Theres a tinkle into the cash register. No question about it. Unbelievable. So what did you do . I said, i think i can do that. I think i can put a group like that together. By the time lou had his idea to start a boy band, he was living in orlando, florida. And orlando is a great place to be if you want to start a boy band because theres a lot of young talent auditioning for roles at the theme parks. I was a manager at the time. A. J. Mclean was a client. I always felt that because he had this talent and he was so focused on what he wanted to do from such a young age that he was destined for something special. I get a phone call one day from this gentleman who id never heard of before named lou pearlman. He had heard a. J. Sing and really loved him. And he wanted to know if i would work with him to put a new boy group together. Kind of on the lines of the new kids on the block. And so im like, hell yeah, im jumping on that. He said i could manage the group and be a coproducer with him. The big problem with new kids on the block is that there was a rumor that they couldnt sing live. So what lou pearlman thought was, oh, well, ill find five guys who are goodlooking and can dance but that can sing. So lou puts an ad in the orlando sentinel, which reads, producer seeks male singers that move well between 16 and 19 years of age, wanted for a new kids type singing dance group. Lou pearlman had a blimp warehouse where he stored the blimp parts in kissimmee, florida. And one by one the kids came in. Nicky carter sang bridge over troubled waters. And, oh, my god, he knocked us on the floor. Obviously a. J. Mcclean. And we had howard dorough. Howie had a great voice. Those are the three originals. And we needed five. I liked the sound but id said to them, you really need to have fivepart harmony. Lou actually found kevin at a disney parade. He was playing aladdin. Kevin came into the group and recommended his cousin brian. And he says, i have a cousin in kentucky. His name is Brian Littrell. He sings in church. Hes a really good singer. So that formed five guys together. I put the money out to help them. Wed give them choreographers. Wed give them vocal lessons. Wed give them tutors. I think im a great cultivator. Lou is a big guy. But he wasnt a threatening guy. He was kind of a cherubic rolypoly kind of soft guy. They call me big papa. Lou does give himself a nickname. Its big papa. Because hes got it all covered. Hes taking care of all of it. The kids all called him big papa. And it was endearing. I thought it was very sweet at the time. So the boys kind of welcome pearlman as a father figure, especially Kevin Richardson, whose father had recently died of cancer. And a. J. Had grown up pretty much without a father. Nick carter lived in tampa. His father was a former truck driver who ran a nursing home with his wife jane. And money was tight. When nick was 13 he was offered big bucks to join the Mickey Mouse Club. And surprisingly enough his parents allowed him to choose Lou Pearlmans group instead of the Mickey Mouse Club. He was offered the Mickey Mouse Club contract. And then he was also offered this opportunity with the Backstreet Boys. Which, at that time they didnt even have a name. How much money did you turn down by not having nick be a mouseketeer . It was 50,000. It was really a tough decision. In many ways, pearlman filled a void for these boys. But big papa could be a tough taskmaster. Boy band boot camp, basically thats what is was. These kids worked seven days a week from Early Morning till early evening every day. Sometimes where they sweat a lot. We were in an environment sometimes they didnt have air conditioning. But it was great for the times that theyre on tour and the hot summer nights. Or the hot summer days that they were good that they had that training. I think lous passion at that point, at the beginning, was so endearing. And his drive. In the spring of 1993, they appear on local channel 6 in orlando. What is your name . Im a. J. Mclean. Aj. And who are you . Howie d. Howie. Okay, now, where are you from . Im from lexington, kentucky. My names brian litrell. Brian, okay, and over here . Im from tampa, florida. And im nick carter. Okay, and who are you . Im Kevin Richardson from lexington, kentucky. The new heartthrobs, huh . Make some noise for the Backstreet Boys and then lou books them at seaworld, which is, of course, a big attraction in orlando. And it includes the temptations classic get ready. Pearlman makes a video of a seaworld performance and sends it around to people in the industry. Former new kids on the block road managers Johnny Wright and his thenwife donna see the tape. And they think the boys have potential. We feel good. Were happy. Johnny and donna came down. And they helped me manage the group. This is Johnny Wright, production manager and voice of the new kids. What i had heard about him prior to meeting him, that he was a billionaire. He runs around in a rolls royce. He owns all these blimps in orlando. He also told me he was a writer and a producer. I had no reason to doubt anything that he was telling me at that time. And he had already put the band together. So i just felt like, hey, we lucked into something here. But remember, pearlman has already hired jean tanzey as their manager. Lou pearlman said, jean, you know, we love you. But we really need to bring in someone who has a lot more experience in the Music Industry. Youre always going to be family. That was my goodbye kick. He just cut me out. With johnny and donna wright on board as managers, the Backstreet Boys go on a tour of high schools. They would do three shows a day in three different schools. And they would bust out on the gym floor. And the girls would lose their mind. And they had never heard of them before. I went to all the schools. And saw the genesis of Backstreet Boys going around the country. You really have to be handson to be out there and see whats going on. Lou had his hands in everything. He would be like, yeah, i dont know if that move is right. He would show them in a funny way, like, something that they should do. Lou always felt that they shouldnt be so covered up. He always was thinking about the girls want, like, pinup guys and stuff like that. And you also have to recall that this was when grunge was a big deal. Nirvana, pearl jam. Were getting gangster rap. And snoop doggy dogg is all the rage. And so theres nobody talking about a boy band. Everybody now all they need is a record deal. And theyll get one. But by the time they get one, therell be somebody else installed as a kind of sixth member of the group. The sixth man. Backstreets back all right along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. 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