Out singer Lance Bass revealed in an
interview that he felt depressed being closeted while performing with
NSYNC.
The 39-year-old Bass came out gay in a
2006 PEOPLE cover story. He
and husband Michael Turchin are planning to start a family.
“It was torture,”Bass told The
Huffington Post. “Onstage, I felt like I was just playing a
character, but offstage, unfortunately, I didn't get to have my real
life.”
Bass said that he felt depressed when
he was not performing with the band.
“It was definitely a depression,”
he
said. “Ironically a depression: to be in one of the biggest
bands in the world and have the best time of my life. But when I was
home, I felt really horrible about myself. So yeah, it was sad.”
Being out wasn't an option, he said.
“The '90s were a different time. If
you came out, if anyone knew you were gay, it was a disaster and
people really flipped out. I felt like if anyone found out that I
was gay, the record label would immediately drop us and the fans
would hate us – these were all the crazy things that went through
my head as a teenager,” Bass said.
Bass said that after coming out he lost
a lot of friends “because they couldn't get over how I could lie to
them for that long.”
Being out “would've changed
everything,” Bass said, adding that he “would've actually been a
happy person.”