Lance Bass is a Actor and Producer American born on 4 may 1979 at Ellisville (USA)
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Birth name James Lance BassNationality USABirth 4 may 1979 (45 years) at Ellisville (
USA)
James Lance Bass (born May 4, 1979) 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 NSYNC. NSYNC'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 NSYNC'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. Biography
Bass dated actress Danielle Fishel of TV's Boy Meets World throughout 1999 and 2000. Fishel stated that she was heavily invested in the relationship, commenting that she was "like, so in love" with Bass. Bass ended the relationship after one year, and continued to exclusively date women until he was 22.
In his autobiography, Bass documents two gay relationships that predated media speculation; one with a Miami, Florida, native named Jesse, with whom Bass lived for two years, and another with an Idaho native named Joe. Bass began dating Amazing Race winner Reichen Lehmkuhl in early 2006, a courtship that garnered tabloid coverage and led to Bass's decision to come out. Bass described his relationship with Lehmkuhl as "very stable"; however, the couple split several months later. Shortly after his split with Lehmkuhl, Bass briefly dated Brazilian model and LXTV host Pedro Andrade. From August 2007 to March 2008, Bass dated New York-based hairdresser Ben Thigpen. After a year and a half of dating, Bass became engaged to Michael Turchin in September 2013. Bass and Turchin married on December 20, 2014 in Los Angeles.
In a 2006 interview, Bass stated that he has Attention-Deficit Disorder. Bass's favorite music bands are Aerosmith, The Goo Goo Dolls, and Journey, and his favorite actress is Lucille Ball, whom he grew up watching on I Love Lucy re-runs. He is a self-described "huge Dr. Seuss fan", devoting an entire room in his Jackson, Mississippi estate to Seuss memorabilia. Bass has said that he is a Christian and that he regularly attends church, though he considers himself to be non-denominational. He is the godfather of former bandmate Joey Fatone's daughters, Briahna and Kloey. Bass and Fatone are best friends.
Sexual orientation
Bass came out as gay in a cover story for People magazine on July 26, 2006. There had been considerable media speculation about his orientation due to numerous paparazzi snapshots of him at gay bars and nightclubs, most notably during the preceding Independence Day weekend in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton had also been posting items on his website about Bass's orientation since September 2005, and New York gossip column Page Six ran a blurb on July 12, 2006, that reported a sighting of Bass at a gay bar with his then-boyfriend, Reichen Lehmkuhl. Bass's publicist, Ken Sunshine, chose to release the story exclusively to People magazine, who bumped actor Johnny Depp off of that week's cover in favor of Bass. In his coming out interview, Bass stated,
“
The thing is, I'm not ashamed – that's the one thing I want to say. I don't think it's wrong, I'm not devastated going through this. I'm more liberated and happy than I've been my whole life. I'm just happy.
”
Bass's announcement received a large amount of media attention. The American public's reaction was generally positive, with Bass receiving "overwhelming support" from many teenagers and young adults who grew up listening to 'N Sync. However, Bass received criticism from the LGBT community when he referred to himself and his friends as "straight acting" in his People interview, stating, "I call them the SAGs — the straight-acting gays. We're just normal, typical guys. I love to watch football and drink beer." This comment angered some members of the LGBT community, who believed that Bass not only implied that effeminate gay men were not 'normal', but further enforced unneeded stereotypes. In a 2007 interview with The Advocate, Bass called his comment a "mistake" and noted that he was unaware of the negative implications surrounding the term. Bass stated, "Every community is hard to please. Our community is very fickle. It's a touchy community because it's the last civil rights movement we have left here in America. So when someone new like myself comes along and says off-the-mark things, yeah, I can see how people would get pissed."
Bass found himself in the midst of further controversy later that year when he, along with then-boyfriend Reichen Lehmkuhl, was awarded the 2006 Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award on October 7, 2006. The Washington Blade printed a guest editorial from a long-time HRC supporter who claimed that neither recipient had done enough to deserve the award and that The Human Rights Campaign was simply capitalizing on Bass's fame to sell tickets. The Human Rights Campaign stood by Bass and defended his award, responding to critics by saying, "Bass is the biggest music star since Melissa Etheridge to come out, and maybe some people think HRC should just ignore these moments of cultural significance, but his declaration did initiate a positive, national conversation that continues today."
Relationship and marriage
Bass began dating painter Michael Turchin in January 2011 and they became engaged in September 2013. They married on December 20, 2014 at the Park Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles. Former NSYNC bandmates Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick and JC Chasez were in attendance; Justin Timberlake, who was then headlining his The 20/20 Experience World Tour, was not present. The ceremonial event was filmed and televised in a special E! presentation: Lance Loves Michael: The Lance Bass Wedding that aired on February 5, 2015. Bass and Turchin were the first same-sex couple to exchange vows on cable television.
Spaceflight plans
In February 2002, Lena Banks, a space advocate and founder/producer of Think Tank Ink Productions, contacted Lance Bass to propose his involvement in her Youngest Person in Space project. Ms. Banks brought her longtime associate David Krieff of Destiny Productions on board and through a series of events in August 2002, Bass entered cosmonaut training in Star City, Russia. Bass was considered as the US host of a space competition show to be entitled The Big Mission, which had been successful in Denmark, in which several contestants would go through rigorous training in order to win a seat on a Russian Soyuz space capsule. However, the game show concept was reconsidered, as the producers of the show decided it would be a much better idea to shoot a documentary of a celebrity actually training and going into space, and airing it on a major network. Lena Banks came up with the idea of the Youngest Person in Space many years before Dennis Tito had his historical flight. Through a series of events in early 2002 the chance of using Bass was presented when a colleague mentioned her space project to a friend and the friend's daughter shouted out, "Lance Bass wants to go into space!" The girl, who was an NSYNC fan, learned of Bass' lifelong dream of space travel when she read it online via a MTV forum. Lena Banks spoke to Lance Bass's management who then went to him with the proposal. "At first he thought we were joking," Lena Banks remarks. "I assured him it was for real; he accepted and we moved forward with the project."
In order to be admitted into training, Bass had to go through strenuous physicals that saved his life. It was discovered he had cardiac arrhythmia, and he agreed to undergo heart surgery to correct it. Prior to this, in 1999, he collapsed after a concert because of his condition. After several months of training, Bass received cosmonaut certification and went on to Houston's Johnson Space Center (JSC) to take part in astronaut training. He was scheduled to fly into space on the Soyuz TMA-1 mission that was to be launched on October 30, 2002. The capsule was scheduled to fly to the International Space Station and land in a desert in Kazakhstan.
Several months before Bass was scheduled to fly, the original deal to air the documentary about Bass fell through. Bass's camp turned to MTV, who initially agreed to sponsor the trip but then backed out over "payment, insurance, and indemnification issues." Shortly after, all of Bass's other sponsorships fell through, including one sponsor that pulled out because they worried about the image of their brand possibly being tarnished if Bass were to die on the mission. Bass was eventually rejected from the program, and was replaced on the flight by Russian cosmonauts Yuri Lonchakov, Sergei Zalyotin and Belgium's Frank De Winne.
Space advocacy
In 2003, Bass began serving as World Space Week's Youth Spokesman. Bass has stated that he believes young people becoming more interested in space exploration "will help the future of our planet". From 2003 to 2005, Bass spent World Space Week traveling to American high schools speaking with students about space exploration and encouraging them to explore careers in the fields of science and mathematics. Bass is a member of the National Space Society, a non-profit educational space advocacy organization founded by Dr. Wernher Von Braun. Bass has served on the National Space Society's Board of Governors since October 2004, alongside other space advocates such as actor Tom Hanks and author and futurist Sir Arthur C. Clarke. In a 2007 interview with GQ magazine, Bass stated that he "absolutely" still intends on going to space, and that he hopes to work on a space documentary. Bass has also retained fluency in Russian, which he was required to learn during his training.
Autobiography
Following public response surrounding his coming out, Bass announced that he was releasing an autobiography. The book, entitled Out of Sync, was published on October 23, 2007. It was co-written by The New York Times best-selling biographer Marc Eliot, who also wrote the book's introduction, and was published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment, a division of Simon & Schuster. The 208-page book covers what Bass describes as "the first chapter" in his life, from his childhood growing up in rural Mississippi, to his efforts to obtain a seat on a Russian space capsule and the proceeding financial issues he had with his sponsors, and culminating with Bass's decision to go public with his sexuality. The book includes details about boyfriends that he kept from family and friends, and recounts NSYNC's 2002 decision to go on an "extended hiatus". Bass stated that Justin Timberlake was the sole reason NSYNC did not get back together. Out of Sync debuted on the New York Times Best Seller list for the week of November 11, 2007.
Philanthropy and causes
Bass has been involved with a number of charities during his career. In 2001, Bass founded The Lance Bass Foundation, a non-profit organization that was designed to meet the health needs of low-income children. In 2003, Bass donated $30,000 US to establish the Amber Pulliam Special Education Endowment at The University of Southern Mississippi. The endowment is in honor of his younger cousin, Amber Pulliam, who has Down syndrome, and was established to financially aid students from Mississippi's Pine Belt who plan a career in special education.
After 2005's Hurricane Katrina, Bass launched "uBid For Hurricane Relief", a celebrity auction to benefit victims of the hurricane, with uBid.com. Proceeds from the auction were split between the Child Welfare League of America, The Brett Favre Fourward Mississippi Foundation, and Ashton Kutcher's RockWorks Foundation. Many of Bass's family members in Mississippi were directly affected by the hurricane. That same year, Bass appeared on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition with a donation to a Russian woman to save a camp for disabled children in Russia.
Bass is a member of the Environmental Media Association's board of directors. He has also been involved with Animal Avengers, Shannon Elizabeth's animal rescue organization. He has two dogs which he adopted from a rescue shelter, both of whom he posed with in a PETA ad urging people to adopt rather than buy animals. In August 2007, Bass wrote a guest commentary for LOGO's "Visible Vote '08" blog, in which he expressed support for gay marriage. In September 2007, Bass participated in a series of GLAAD television advertisements promoting tolerance for the LGBT community. Bass has also been involved in fundraising for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.
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