Lance Bass reveals planned sitcom was cancelled after he came out as gay
*NSYNC singer Lance Bass has revealed that he had a sitcom in development with US television network The CW which was canned after he came out as gay.
Bass famously appeared on the cover of People magazine in 2006 with the headline reading: “I’M GAY.”
Nearly 20 years later, the star revealed in an interview with Politickin’ podcast that just prior to the cover coming out he was preparing to shoot the pilot for a new sitcom in which he would star as a heterosexual character.
“I had a sitcom with The CW at the time, and we were about to shoot the pilot. Then this came out, and they were like, ‘We can’t do the show anymore. They have to believe that you’re straight to play a straight character,'” Bass explained.
Not only did his coming out pump the brakes on this unnamed comedy vehicle, Bass also believes it prevented him from being cast in any heterosexual roles across the board.
“Every casting director I knew, they were like, ‘Lance, we can’t cast you because they can’t look past… You’re too famous for being gay now, and they can’t see you as anything other than that,'” he said.
“So, I lost everything. Agents, everything, just everyone kind of fell off. They’re 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.”
“All the examples I’ve ever had of anyone coming out, especially in entertainment, was that it’s a career killer”
The boyband member spoke of how his own experience echoed that of sitcom stars Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell: “All the examples I’ve ever had of anyone coming out, especially in entertainment, was that it’s a career killer.”
Bass, who has since acted in shows such as Insatiable and Hand of God, went on to say that in the years since, many of the casting directors who previously turned their back on him have expressed their regret over their actions.
“A lot of the casting directors… they’re all kind of like, ‘Yeah, that was really dumb,’ he told the podcast. “And they’ve actually cast me in a lot of things since which is really funny and ironic, ” Bass said. “But, you know, I never hold grudges at all.”
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