When former boy bander Lance Bass famously came out on the cover of PEOPLE Magazine in 2006, the *NSYNC singer became one of the few publicly out celebrities in the nation. Only Ellen DeGeneres had done anything similar, and it ruined her career for years.
But Bass had decided to “rip the band-aid off,” he said, and, after some tabloid speculation, he felt it was the right thing to do. He knew there would be repercussions, but one thing he didn’t expect was a gift basket from “the king of the gay mafia.”
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“Of course, there were rumors, but that was also at a time where social media wasn’t so much of a thing, and you could actually have more of a private life,” Bass told PEOPLE in a retrospective issue about the magazine’s 50th anniversary. “No one was taking pictures everywhere you went. So it was kind of easy for me to live this kind of private life.”
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“I had a boyfriend, my circle of friends knew about me, and I just didn’t think [my sexuality] was such a big deal.”
After he ran into a journalist in Provincetown who outed him, Bass said he knew it was time to take the plunge. But he also knew there would be some blowback.
“I knew I had to say something. And at that point, I was so scared about what would happen in my life personally. I didn’t want my family to get hurt by this,” says Bass.
Shortly after the issue hit the stands, Bass lost a deal to star in a sitcom, but the public reacted positively.
“I didn’t expect how positive the rest of the world would treat it,” he said. “The industry said, oh, well, we can’t use you now. But the public — they made it such a positive thing.”
“Once I was able to see that reaction, it made me feel so good that I wasn’t going to be hated.”
And the queer community, in particular, embraced Bass.
“The most fun thing I got after I came out was a nice gift basket — I think on my front step — and it was from Elton John basically saying, ‘Welcome to the club,’” he said.
“I was like, ‘Wow, I got a welcome basket from the king of the gay mafia.’ I’m like, ‘I’m in!’ I thought that was the most fun, welcoming basket you could ever get.”
