Nick Lachey is revealing another unsettling detail about life inside the late-1990s boy band machine.
In the upcoming Investigation Discovery series Boy Band Confidential, the 98 Degrees singer says the group kept a guidebook on its tour bus listing the age of consent in every state. According to Lachey, the book was handed to the band early in its career, when 98 Degrees was beginning to tour nationally and dealing with the realities of sudden fame.
“This is going to sound super shady, but when we first went out, I remember in our first tour, someone at the label gave us a book,” Lachey says in the documentary, according to Us Weekly. “It was the age of consent in every state in the country.”
Between 1998 and 2000, during the group’s commercial peak with 98 Degrees and Rising and Revelation, the four members were not teenagers themselves. Nick Lachey, Jeff Timmons, and Justin Jeffre were between 25 and 27 years old, while Drew Lachey was between 22 and 24.
The band was touring across the country at a time when state laws regarding the age of consent varied widely, ranging from 16 to 18 depending on where they were performing.
There is no single national age of consent law in the United States. Most states set the legal age at 16, 17, or 18, while federal law generally sets the age threshold at 18 when activity crosses state lines or occurs on federal property. For a touring act moving from city to city, the rules could change overnight depending on where the bus stopped next.
Lachey framed the guidebook less as encouragement to sleep with teenage fans and more as a warning about the pressure surrounding young performers in the spotlight.
“Unfortunately, there were people out there looking to tear you down,” he said.
He also contrasted the environment 98 Degrees faced with that of younger artists today. “You see [Justin] Bieber cancel a tour. You’ll see Shawn Mendes cancel a tour because [their] mental health needs to come first,” Lachey says in the series. “That was not an option when we were out there.”
Lachey later admitted that period left him questioning his identity, while bandmate Jeff Timmons said the pressure contributed to severe depression and thoughts of suicide.
Executive producer Joey Fatone says Boy Band Confidential explores how record labels and managers turned young performers into “marketable commodities” while often ignoring the emotional and psychological toll.
