Lance Bass Says He Made 'Way More' Money After *NSYNC Split: 'We Were Famous but We Were Not Rich'

Lou Pearlman, the band's manager and creator was convicted of fraud in 2008

Lance Bass is spilling the tea about his finances back in the day as a member of *NSYNC.

During an appearance on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show on Wednesday, Bass revealed that he made "way more" money after the group disbanded.

"The worst thing was people thinking we were rich because we were not," Bass, 43, said. "We were famous but we were not rich. I made way more money after *NSYNC than I did during *NSYNC."

He added of the band's former manager, "Lou [Pearlman] really took the majority of all of our stuff. And the record label too. Horrible deals."

Pearlman — who died in prison in 2016 at age 62 — created the band and was notorious for a $300 million Ponzi scheme when he mishandled the group's finances and was later sued by several members of different boy bands, including the Backstreet Boys. He was convicted of fraud in 2008.

Related:Lance Bass Hopes New Doc The Boy Band Con Will Teach People to 'Be a Skeptic in Everything We Do'

In 2021, Bass made an appearance on the PEOPLE Every Day podcast and opened up about how his personal experience with finances in the boy band influenced his business practices.

"I definitely went through a hard lesson at a young age of getting taken advantage of by our business manager," Bass said at the time.

When he joined *NSYNC, Bass said the financial side of the music industry eluded him. "You're not thinking business when you're starting at 16. You're thinking, 'I'm going to have fun. I'm going to make music and tour the world.'"

A 2019 documentary titled The Boy Band Con: The Lou Pearlman Story tracks Pearlman's story from his childhood in Queens to the dizzying heights of managing mega-bands *NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, LFO and O-Town. The film also recounts his fall from grace after it was discovered that he perpetrated one of the largest Ponzi schemes in American history and swindled earnings from the globally successful acts he managed.

RELATED VIDEO: *NSYNC Talks Iconic and Never-Before-Heard Stories

The doc included interviews with Bass and his former *NSYNC bandmates JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick, as well as AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys, Ashley Parker Angel of O-Town and the late Aaron Carter.

At the time, Bass told PEOPLE that he remained disappointed that Pearlman never apologized for his crimes, even after he was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of money laundering, conspiracy and fraud.

"I didn't need an 'I'm sorry' to me, but I just wanted him to take responsibility and admit, 'You know what, I did mess up.' I really wanted to see a little remorse in him, but you could tell until his last days, he was just a true narcissist that really, truly believed in the things that he was saying," the singer recalled. "I think he thought the world owed him a lot."

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