This morning's New York Post (via Vanity Fair) has a pretty incredible article about Lou Pearlman, the creator of boy bands such as the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC. To sum it up, he's a HUGE perv, both figuratively and literally. He's also a con artist currently awaiting trial on charges of bilking investors out of more than $300 million and Nick Carter out of his innocence. Pearlman's former assistant, Steve Mooney, reveals:

"I would absolutely say the guy was a sexual predator. All the talent knew what Lou's game was. Some guys joked about it. I remember [one singer] asking me, 'Have you let Lou [fellate] you yet?' "

ooney said he once asked Pearlman, who was known as "Big Poppa," what it would take for him to get into a band. "I'll never forget this as long as I live. He leaned back in his chair, in his white terry cloth robe and white underwear, and spread his legs. And then he said, and these were his exact words, 'You're a smart boy. Figure it out.' " Mooney added that a singer groped by Pearlman told him, "Look, if a guy wants to massage me, and I'm getting a million dollars for it, you just go along with it. It's the price you got to pay."

Phoenix Stone, an early member of the Backstreet Boys, tells Vanity Fair Pearlman was "definitely inappropriate" with Nick Carter. Nick's mom, Jane Carter, wouldn't get into specifics, but said, "Certain things happened and it almost destroyed our family. I tried to warn everyone. I tried to warn all the mothers . . . I tried to expose him for what he was years ago." (Source)

Having just read this article, somewhere in San Francisco the repressed memories of Lance Bass are flooding back to him causing him to uncharacteristically spit. Later in the article it may or may not have mentioned that Pearlman was also Clay Aiken, Boy George, George Michael, and Elton John's manager . . . but I'm sure those guys were born with their tendencies. Not that there's anything wrong with that. My dads are gay.