NSYNC singer ‘was gonna go bankrupt’ and had to move back in with parents to start over — the hard lessons he learned about rebuilding his finances

In the recent docuseries Boy Band Confidential: A Hollywood Demons Event, Fatone outlined how he found himself in severe money troubles following the boy band's break-up in 2002. (2)

A year before the group said "bye bye bye," Fatone bought a near-$3 million, 10,000-square-foot Orlando house. (3) But when the group disbanded and the cashflow slowed, Fatone's financial state took a turn.

"I started watching the numbers deplete quicker and quicker than normal," Fatone told Fox News. "I'm going, 'This is not right.' And then it was almost like a snowball effect." (4)

Things hit rock bottom when he didn't pay his electricity bill and authorities cut power to his house on Christmas. (5) A new accountant told Fantone — now a husband and father of two — that he'd have to sell his house to avoid bankruptcy. So the singer did just that, moving his family in with his parents while he figured out next steps.

"Talking about possibly going bankrupt myself and going down that path, when you had millions of dollars ... to almost have nothing," he told People, "it's like, what do you do?" (6)

How Fatone got his work and finances back in-sync

Fantone said that, at first, he panicked, as "your brain goes into automatic survival mode." (7) But then he calmed down and remembered lessons from his upbringing.

"Thank goodness I was raised the way I was raised, in the sense of [rising] up to the occasion," he explained. "You have failed at something — don't dwell and cry on it all day long. Figure out a way to make it work. Figure out a way to get out of this. And that's what I did." (7)

Fatone has said that keeping a positive outlook was key to what came next. First, he "swallowed [his] pride" and reached out to friends for help. Then, while his wife and kids stayed with his parents, he moved to Las Vegas for work, living off $2 tacos while hosting a Price is Right casino show. (4)

"I went from performing in stadiums to, a year later, two years later, doing Broadway and then, all of a sudden, when things go down, I'm doing The Price Is Right at Bally's — a live show in front of maybe 100 people," Fatone told People, (6)

But his attitude of "work leads to work" paid off, slowly landing him film and TV gigs including a five-year stint as the announcer on Family Feud, in addition to various stage roles. Most recently, he starred in the hit Broadway musical & Juliet.

Fatone, who has admitted that he never learned about investing or properly handling money when he was younger, told USA Today that "people were like, 'Wow dude, you really hit rock bottom.' And it's like, 'Listen, it's a learning lesson. It's just another step up to get back up in there.'" (7)

What to do if you’re caught in a financial bind

Whether due to an unexpected expense, financial mismanagement or simply trying to keep up during an affordability crisis, Americans — even the popstars among us — can easily find themselves struggling to rebuild their finances.

The national personal savings rate, for example, fell in March to 3.6% — the lowest since October 2022 (8) — while 51% of Americans report living paycheck to paycheck and 34% have characterized their financial state as a "crisis," according to a Ramsey survey. (9)

The good news is, Fatone's experiences can offer a solid template for others.