WINDERMERE, Fla. — A former business associate of Lou Pearlman, who died Friday while serving a prison sentence, remembers her time working with the boy-band mogul as the best of times and then the worst of times.
For five years in the 1990s, Donna Wright worked side by side with Lou Pearlman to launch boy band phenomenons the Backstreet Boys and later NSYNC.
"It was good times, very good times," said Wright, who owns music management company Wright Stuff Management.
Their work racked up awards and put Orlando on the music industry’s map—all while Pearlman charmed a city, earning influence by redeveloping downtown’s Church Street Station.
"We built this and we thought we would keep it going, but then his greed stepped in and it just ruined everything," said Wright.
It all came crashing down in a $300 million Ponzi scheme that landed Pearlman a 25-year prison sentence.
Many of his business associates lost their savings to the scheme.
Wright also sued him, and after years of working through feelings of her own betrayal, she planned to visit him in prison.
"I wanted to tell him how I felt, but I didn’t get that chance," she said. "It’s OK, it’s OK."
Details about Pearlman’s cause of death haven't been released yet.
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