Photo: Ethan Miller/FilmMagic; Eric McCandless/Getty
Nick Carterwas faced with some serious decisions when he was just a preteen.
TheBackstreet Boyssinger, now 42, reunited with boyband memberAJ McLeanat this weekend’s90s Conin Hartford, Connecticut, and shared how he got his start with the famous five 30 years ago.
After McLean, 44, told fans that he met Carter at auditions for Disney and Nickelodeon in 1992 — when McLean, “the OG” Backstreet Boy, was helping build the band — Carter recalled the moment he was given the chance to join theMickey Mouse Club.
“I got offered a contract, and I turned it down,” he said Sunday. “I was supposed to be on the same team asBritney [Spears]andRyan [Gosling]. And I got an option to go in for a Backstreet Boys audition. [AJ] was there.”
Carter added that he was faced with choosing between “the $50,000 contract from theMickey Mouse Cluband Backstreet Boys, which had nothing really going for it,” ultimately acknowledging: “I chose the Backstreet Boys.”
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Though Carter would go on to work with McLean,Howie Dorough,Kevin Richardson, andBrian Littrell, he would have metJustin Timberlake— another famousMickey Mouse Clubcast member from the early 1990s — if he had leaned the other way.
“Biggest decision of yourlife,” McLean told Carter at 90s Con. “Think about it. You could potentially have been in*NSYNC. Who knows!”
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Music fans were quick to choose a side in the 1990s, but McLean, Carter, and *NSYNC singerJoey Fatonemade it clear at the ’90s-themed convention that there was never any bad blood between the boybanders.
“They kept us kind of away [from each other], I think. Our managers were the same managers, Lou Pearlman in the very early stages,” Fatone explained. “[Backstreet Boys] were doing their thing, and we were doing ours, and they never really brought us together because I don’t think they wanted us to talk to each other.”
For the most part, the dueling bands were in friendly competition — all except McLean and *NSYNC’sChris Kirkpatrick. “Chris and I did not like each other at first,” said McLean. “There was a reason. We dated the same girl two years apart. Now Chris and I are like really close friends. He’s a father now, so we have that in common. Things have changed.”
It all was for the best in the end, said Carter: “You could say that without *NSYNC that we wouldn’t be the Backstreet Boys. There wouldn’t be that competition.”
source: people.com
