It’s pretty common for the members of boy bands to be from all over the place, so what about Joey Fatone, the former ‘NSYNC member?
Joey Fatone grew up in one of New York City’s five boroughs, Brooklyn, until he was 13. That was when his family moved to Orlando, Florida. While he lived in Florida as a teen, he formed an Acapella group called Big Guys and also performed in the Universal Studios Florida production of Beetlejuice’s Graveyard Revue before joining ‘NSYNC.
Scroll down to learn more about Joey Fatone’s life before N’Sync, how he got into the group ‘NSYNC, and what he’s been up to since.
Joey Fatone’s NYC Childhood
Joey Fatone was born on January 28, 1977, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn to Joe and Phyllis Fatone. From a young age, Joey always had musical influences in his life.
His father was a singer in a Brooklyn doo-wop group called The Orions. Despite his family moving to Orlando when he was only 13, Fatone still considers Brooklyn to be his home.
When The Food Network interviewed him for the season 3 premiere of Chopped All-Stars, they asked him what his favorite food city was to visit. He responded with “Brooklyn. It’s where I am from and I always have to go get pizza at L&B Spumoni Gardens.”
Clearly, he looks back at his time in Brooklyn fondly, but it wasn’t the place that led to his success as a 90s pop star. The city responsible for that was Orlando, Florida.
When Fatone moved to Florida, he was quick to get into any role that could help him to become the entertainment star that he longed to be. This led him to get a job at Universal Studios Orlando.
While at Universal Studios Orlando, he played the Wolfman in their production of Beetlejuice’s Graveyard Revue. It was through this production that he met his future bandmate, Chris Kirkpatrick.
In the below Access Hollywood video, Joey Fatone recalls his days before ‘NSYNC and getting into the group.
Fatone Gets Into ‘NSYNC
The story of the creation of ‘NSYNC may be one that a lot of people are unfamiliar with. The birth of the group actually came from Chris Kirkpatrick’s connection to Howie D of the Backstreet Boys.
Chris Kirkpatrick and Howie D went way back and apparently, Chris had bothered him about joining the BSB group. Howie said that Chris didn’t have the look they were going for, but he did speak to band manager, Lou Pearlman, to see if Lou could help Chris out.
Allegedly, that led to Lou telling Chris to get a group of guys together as a second boy band. So Chris began his search.
Justin Timberlake caught the eye of Lou Pearlman when he saw him on The Mickey Mouse Club. By this point, JT had left MMC and was living back home in Memphis, Tennessee along with his fellow MMC co-star JC Chasez.
The two had been working on making their own music to each try and have their own breakout success as soloists. When Timberlake got the call about joining the group, he recommended his buddy JC to join too so the group was up to three members.
The fourth member to join the group was Joey Fatone. As mentioned above, he and Kirkpatrick had met during their time working at Universal Studios so when Kirkpatrick’s group needed someone who could sing baritone, Joey was a clear choice.
The group held auditions for the fifth spot, which was awarded to Jason Galasso. However, right before the group was to sign with Pearlman’s Tran Continental record label, Galasso dropped from the group saying he didn’t want to be a teen idol.
They needed a fifth member and they found Lance Bass through JT’s vocal coach. Lance was a sixteen-year-old from Mississippi.
The group released three albums that were huge successes with songs like ‘Bye, Bye, Bye’ and ‘This I Promise You’ before breaking up in 2002.
Joey Fatone’s Life Since
Since his ‘NSYNC days, Joey Fatone has been up to a lot. He married his high school sweetheart, Kelly Baldwin in 2004.
They had two daughters together named Briahna and Kloey. Kloey has high functioning autism and was on the show Big Star Little Star to help raise money for Autism Speaks.
Fatone filed for divorce from Baldwin in 2019 after the two became estranged. However, he still lives in Florida.
Joey has also appeared on tons of reality shows like Dancing With the Stars, Celebrity Family Feud, and The Masked Singer. And, he owns a hot dog franchise called Fat One’s.