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O-Town’s Ashley Parker Angel feared dying at a young age and joining the growing list of famous musicians who don’t make it to their 28th birthdays.
Angel, 41, was “just turning 18” when his career took off on “Making the Band.” The popular pop group that formed on the hit reality show was later managed by disgraced boy band founder Lou Pearlman, who also discovered Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC.
“When you achieve success and fame at that age, what they don’t tell you is, once you become that successful and famous, you’re always going to compare yourself to that,” Angel explained on Tuesday’s episode of the “Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef” podcast, adding that many “feel a pressure to keep it going.”
“Fame can cause a lot of depression and anxiety and a lot of substance abuse issues and all kinds of psychological issues that people have to work through because there is this darker underbelly to dealing with fame,” he added.
After three years together, O-Town disbanded in 2003 and Angel went on a relentless pursuit of a solo career, which was documented in another reality series, “There and Back.”
Angel told Yontef he was living a “rock star lifestyle” and all it encompassed at the time — including depression.
“I started turning to drugs and alcohol,” he shared, adding that he began to have “close friends in the industry” who started dying by suicide, including Disney Channel star Lee Thompson Young.
“You see, sometimes this fame happens at a young age, and you’re getting this validation from the world. And then all of a sudden, the plug gets pulled on that, and it makes people go crazy,” Angel said.
“I looked at myself in the mirror, and I was like, ‘If I don’t make a change, I’m gonna join ‘the 27 club.’ I’m going to die as this young performer, like many have,’” he went on.
“And I had this epiphany moment where I knew I needed to make a change. And for that reason, I think my perspective on even pursuing music after that really changed. That’s why I pivoted into Broadway.”
His first gig was playing the lead character’s love interest in “Hairspray” in 2007.
At the time of his “epiphany,” Angel also returned to a previous passion: health and fitness.
“I got up, cleaned up and I rode full force into my fitness journey,” he shared. “And I think a lot of people don’t know that about me. That’s why I’m so addicted to fitness. I feel so good living this healthy lifestyle. For me, it’s mental and it’s emotional. It’s not just a physical look.“
In not so many words, Angel also attributed his desire to “be done with the music industry” to Pearlman, whom he noted “ended up being sued by *NSYNC and Backstreet [Boys].”
“The music industry is full of a lot of sharky people,” he told Yontef, pointing out that Pearlman was “a conman and a criminal” who “died in jail.”
In addition to allegedly withholding money from the performers he was managing, there were also unspecified rumors surrounding Pearlman’s alleged “thing for boys.”
“It’s out there that Lou had this dark quality to him, that he would use his power and influence to manipulate young performers into these really questionable scenarios,” Angel said in the 2019 documentary, “The Boy Band Con.”
The musician alleged that the late music mogul would ask the O-Town members to take off their shirts and show off their abs during rehearsals.
“It feels like, ‘Oh, this is part of having a mentor of a band who wants to make sure you’re in good shape,’ because that’s what he would always say,” Angel said in the film, claiming Pearlman would emphasize that part of their job was to sell teen magazines.
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