Lance Bass says he was the victim of sexual harassment when he was a teenager.
The 36-year-old pop star made the allegations in an October 7 appearance on The Meredith Vieira Show. The comments were made during a discussion of Ashley Judd's recent claims that she was sexually harassed by a studio executive in 1997.
"This also happens to men, too," Bass told the panelists. "It has happened to me."
The alleged incidents began, he said, in the early days of his time with *NSYNC, when he was 16 or 17 years old.
"When we started there was someone that we worked with that was inappropriately touching us," he said. "I was even aware, then, at 16, that this guy was a pedophile and he was touching me oddly."
Bass, who tied the knot with his husband, Michael Turchin, last December, said that although he discussed the "odd" behavior with his bandmates, he "didn't feel victimized at the time because I was very aware of it."
"I'm glad that we were aware of it, and we didn't feel victimized at the time," he said.
So far, no comment from the rest of the *NSYNC camp.
The singer and radio host didn't name names during the interview, but has previously opened up about sexual harassment allegations surrounding former *NSYNC manager, Lou Pearlman, who is currently serving 25 years in prison for embezzlement.
Bass and his bandmates reportedly declined to be interviewed for a 2007 Vanity Fair article, "Mad About the Boys," which outlined the allegations against Pearlman, as well as follow-up articles by other media outlets.
But he nonetheless told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014, "I'd hear rumors that he would molest the boys before they would even get into the groups. I don't know how much of that is true, but to me, where there's smoke, there's fire."
At the time, Bass said Pearlman hadn't crossed any lines with him or any of his *NSYNC bandmates, but recalled, "He'd always grab our arms and feel our muscles and go: 'Hey boys, you workin' out? Yeahhhh!'"
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