Shaq Diesel has often spoken about his ties to the “Boy Band Mania” of the 1990s and early 2000s. During an interview with The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon back in June 2018, Shaquille O’Neal revealed that there were plenty of boy bands that would come to his Orlando mansion to work on their records. “When I was doing my album thing, I built a studio in the house and a lot of kids came by,” he revealed. “The Backstreet Boys came by, *NSYNC came by, they were nice little kids. They said, ‘Shaq, we don’t have a lot of money, can we borrow your studio?’ And I let them, I think, record their first album.”

Shaq Could Have Signed *NSYNC When They Recorded Demos At His Home Studio
Frederick M. Brown / Stringer / Getty Images

Recently, *NSYNC member Lance Bass was caught by a TMZ cameraman and was asked whether or not it was true that Shaq wanted to sign *NSYNC. “He definitely had the chance to sign us and obviously did not,” Bass said. The cameraman told Bass that Shaq has stated that it was one of his biggest mistakes. “I’m sure it was,” the singer said with a smile.

“We were a brand new band, we were infants,” Bass added. Shaq previously stated that he skipped out on signing the group because he “didn’t understand” their music. Bass said that at the time, *NSYNC didn’t really understand the music they were creating, either. The boy band later went through a legal battle with their manager Lou Pearlman, alleging that he defrauded them off over 50 percent of their total earnings throughout their career.

Bass stated that knowing what he knows now, he wishes *NSYNC would have inked a deal with the NBA icon. “The problem is, we still would have been with Lou Pearlman so we would have had Lou and Shaq together.” Check out his clip below.