jumping on bandwagon

MTV: Bass understands the complexities of being young and gay, even if you aren't out. "I can tell you right now, when I was in high school in Mississippi, I was one of the first ones to jump on the bandwagon to make fun of a gay person, and look how I turned out," he explained. "I had the secret this whole time. And so if people can look at me and see that I was one of those bullies that, like, always made fun of gay people and I had this huge secret, there is always more to the story than you see." Bass now says he gets how hard it is to sort out your feelings as a teenager. He understands that not everyone is outgoing enough to find a support system. His advice is to try to find a small group of friends to rely on and talk to about it. You don't have to tell the world, but you should have someone you can tell. "I really didn't get picked on because I really tried to stay in the background. I tried to stay friends with every single person, but a lot of kids aren't that lucky to be able to socialize like other kids," he said. "They don't have that skill or even don't want to and those are the ones that get picked on just because they're not best friends with the most popular person or they don't have the best clothes or they might be a little more poor than someone else. They don't realize it doesn't matter right now. It doesn't matter at all." (Lance Bass 'Really Shocked' By Suicides Of Gay Teens).

EW: Former *NSYNC member Lance Bass appeared on Larry King Live last night alongside Kathy Griffin, Tim Gunn, and Wanda Sykes to talk about bullying in wake of the recent string of teen suicides. But the now-openly gay pop star surprised King — and audiences — when he admitted that as a teen, he bullied other gay students to fit in. Bass said: “When you’re 13, 14, you just go along with what the other people are doing. You just want to fit in. You want to make sure that your friends like you. So yeah, you’re going to crack jokes, you’re going to laugh along with it. And when you’re a teenager, you’re not really thinking, ‘Oh, I’m being a bully by laughing along with it.’” (Lance Bass admits he bullied kids in the past for being gay).

James Lance Bass (born May 4, 1979), best known as Lance Bass, is an American pop singer, dancer, actor, film and television producer, and author. He grew up in Mississippi and rose to fame as the bass singer for the American pop boy band 'N Sync. 'N Sync's success led Bass to work in film and television. He starred in the 2001 film On the Line, which his company, Bacon & Eggs, also produced. Bass later formed a second production company, Lance Bass Productions, as well as a now-defunct music management company, Free Lance Entertainment, a joint venture with Mercury Records. After completion of 'N Sync's Pop Odyssey Tour, Bass moved to Star City, Russia, in much publicized pursuit of a seat on a Soyuz space capsule. Bass was certified by both NASA and the Russian Space Program after several months of cosmonaut training, and planned to join the TMA-1 mission to the International Space Station. However, after his financial sponsors backed out, Bass was denied a seat on the mission. In July 2006, Bass revealed that he is gay in a cover story for People magazine. He was awarded the Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award in October 2006, and released an autobiography, Out of Sync, in October 2007, which debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list (Wikipedia).

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