Backstreet Boys went through periods of time where just four members were available as they each figured out their lives

Backstreet Boys in 2001. Photo: George De Sota/Redferns

AJ McLean said his personal struggles contributed to a hard time his band the Backstreet Boys had to work through.

McLean looks back on the band’s history in Paramount+’s new documentary, Larger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands. There, he explains how the group ended up stepping away from their time on top due to personal struggles.

The singer, now 46, starts, “With the Backstreet Boys, there was never a breakup, but 2001 was a really dark time.”

“We had toured for nine years straight, just go on tour, make an album, go on tour, make an album. And instead of dealing with my real emotions or my feelings, I kind of got caught up in the lifestyle and the partying and the drinking and the drugs,” McLean admits.

“And it wasn’t until I did what I told myself I would never do — which was drink on stage — that’s when I even had to know, ‘OK dude something’s not right.’ “

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Backstreet Boys in 1995. Tim Roney/Getty

McLean made the decision to get help, with the support of his bandmates, though their relationships were strained at the time.

“The day that I flew from tour into rehab, everybody was just at their wit’s end,” he acknowledges. That first attempt at sobriety was in 2001.

In the following years, the band continued to struggle. “And then Kevin left for six years to go start a family,” McLean says, recalling the other major shift in the group that came in 2006. “We gave him our blessing, he gave us his blessing to continue as four and we kept going without him.”

Backstreet Boys in 1997.

In 2008, Richardson returned, first stepping out with the band during a tour date in Los Angeles.

“I will never forget when Kevin came back. We were at Staples Center and he came up for ‘I Want It That Way.’ I’ve never heard screams so piercing. I had to pull my in-ears out,” McLean recalls.

“He just stood there and I’m like, ‘Yeah you take it in, buddy. Take that s— in.’ And then we went back in the studio.”

Hear more about the history of the Backstreet Boys and other classic boy bands in Larger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands, now streaming on Paramount+.