Lance Bass has admitted coming out as gay was a "career killer".
The former *NSYNC singer spoke publicly about his sexuality in 2006 and he claimed he subsequently "lost everything", with a planned sitcom cancelled ahead of the pilot episode as producers argued he'd no longer be believable as the lead.
Speaking on the 'Bass on the Politickin’' podcast, Lance recalled: “It was a crazy scary situation because all the examples I’ve ever had of anyone coming out, especially in entertainment, was that it’s a career killer.
“The career definitely changed, and they were right about that. Like, it was definitely a career killer.
“I had a sitcom, you know, with The CW at the time, and we were about to shoot the pilot and this came out and they were like, ‘We can’t do the show anymore. Like, they have to believe that you’re straight to play a straight character.' "
And apart from the comedy series, the 'On the Line' actor claimed he was repeatedly turned down for Hollywood roles as he had become "too famous" for his sexuality.
He added: “Every casting director I knew, they’re like, ‘Lance, we can’t cast you because they can’t look past — You’re too famous for being gay now that they can’t look at you as anything other than that.' So, I lost everything.
“You know, agents, everything just everyone just kind of like kind of fell off. Like, ‘I don’t know what we can do with you now.’ And so yeah, I had to completely just restart and rebrand at that moment.”
But as the years have gone by, the 45-year-old star - who has three-year-old twins Violet and Alexander with husband Michael Turchin - has worked with the people who previously turned him down and insisted he never held a grudge as he understood how the industry works.
He said: “They’re all kind of like, ‘Yeah, that was really dumb.'
"And they’ve actually cast me a lot of things since, which is really funny and ironic. But you know, I never hold grudges at all. I’m very understanding. I get it. Business is business is business. It sucks, but I never can hold grudges."
