'NSyncs Joey Fatone Kisses Backstreet Boys Nick Carter
Boy band bromance! During the fourth show of the Backstreet Boys’ Las Vegas residency at the Axis at Planet Hollywood on Wednesday, March 8, ‘NSync’s Joey Fatone joined the guys on stage and surprised former rival Nick Carter with not just a kiss, but a full-on makeout session! The morning after, he tweeted the band: “You guys did a great job, proud of u guys! And nick u have great lips.”
The showering of love took place during 2000’s heartfelt ballad “Shape of My Heart,” where BSB normally pulls a fan on stage and serenades her with roses in their hands. But that night, A.J. McLean had his eyes set on Fatone and invited him on stage instead.
Fatone — who recently opened a Fat One’s Hot Dogs & Italian Ice eatery in Orlando — first shocked McLean by scooping him off his feet and carrying him to his bandmates. Carter promptly ran over and put his arm around him. While McLean and Howie Dorough got down on their knees, Fatone planted a smooch on Carter, who playfully fell over after the kiss.
The inter-boy band love fest wrapped up with McLean changing the final line to: “Show you the shape of Joey’s heart.”
Nearly three years ago, the two singers made headlines when Fatone, now 40, told the Huffington Post that BSB were still around because “I feel like they just need the money — no offense, guys.” At the time, Carter, now 37, was in the middle of his honeymoon — after he wed Lauren Kitt on April 12, 2014 — and took a break to address the comment on Twitter.
“Just disappointed, I really liked joey….,” he tweeted at the time. “I’m proud of who we are and love what we stand for. Truthfully its about not letting our fans down. Sorry bro but you have us all wrong.”
While the comments reignited the Backstreet vs. ‘NSync rivalry, the guys claimed last year that there was never really any bad blood between the two Orlando-based groups. “If anything, it might’ve been a healthy rivalry, but there never any competition. There was never any, you know, ‘You guys suck!’” McLean said in 2016.
Since the heated exchange in 2014, Backstreet has continued to perform, while ‘NSync hasn’t performed together since the 2013 MTV Music Video Awards. But there have been plenty of examples of respect between the two boy bands, specifically between Carter and Fatone (who share a January 28th birthday, but three years apart).
Carter told Us exclusively in 2015 that Fatone was the one who encouraged him to join Dancing With the Stars Season 21, in which he finished in second place: “I was really debating if I wanted to do it, and he said, ‘It’s a great experience, it keeps you in shape and it’ll teach you a lot of stuff.'” Carter told Us.
Carter also reached out to Fatone to costar in his 2016 zombie horror western film, Dead 7 — which included boy band members from 98 Degrees and O-Town as well.
This wasn’t the first mid-concert boy band surprise during the Backstreet Boys’ Vegas residency, which started March 1. During the March 4 show, O-Town member (and Dead 7 costar) Erik-Michael Estrada jumped up in front of McLean with his tongue out during “Incomplete.”
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