Backstreet Mom: A Mother's Tale of Backstreet Boy AJ McLean's Rise to Fame, Struggle With Addiction, and Ultimate Triumph (33 page)

When those impromptu
business meetings came up,
the shows invariably ran
late. The promoters would
get angry and the boys
would get fined. Arguments
over fines would ensue. None of the boys were willing to give up their
personal time for those business meetings. When we tried to schedule a
lunch or breakfast meeting, at least one or more of the boys would not
show up. That would cause arguments between those boys who had
attended and subsequently made decisions and those who had failed to
show up. Spending almost every waking moment of our lives together
was taking its toll on us all.

THERE WERE A FEW TIMES that I felt comfortable enough with the group
of people who were watching over the boys that I stayed off the road.
That enabled me to concentrate on developing press releases for the
boys when they returned to the States. Donna did not realize it, but
since she made enemies at every turn, people were beginning to depend
on Nina or me for all of the boys' press and promotional scheduling.

Nina and I rarely spoke to Donna about press issues. Everything
worked a lot more smoothly when she was not involved. We came to the same conclusion early on about Donna. Every time she had a tantrum it was to get a reaction of some sort. When you stopped reacting to
her insults and manipulations, she usually moved on. When we had to
deal with Donna, we kept it short and sweet.

While we were in England, a female fan that had come to the meetand-greet began crying when it was time for her to leave. She said a gift
that she had brought Kevin had been stolen. She claimed she had brought
an expensive diamond for Kevin and had set the box down to take a
picture with him. When she picked the box up it had been ripped open
and the diamond was missing.

Kevin had the bodyguards ask the other fans if they had noticed anyone around the box and everyone said no. Kevin felt sorry for the girl
and told her that she could come backstage after the show and he would
see her again.

During the show, the record company rep investigated the incident and
took a business card from the girl that had information about the gem. By
the end of the show, they had found out that everything she had told us
was a lie. The business did not exist and there probably never was a real
diamond. She was escorted out and that was the last we ever saw of her.

Later that year, it became apparent that the boys could no longer
walk through airports like normal passengers. There were so many fans
at each one that it was dangerous for them. From that point on, we were
picked up either on the tarmac or outside the gate in private cars with
dark-tinted windows and driven directly to our hotel or wherever. If
passports had to be shown, security collected them from us, displayed
them to the proper authorities and then returned them to us back at the
hotel. Not going through the checkpoints made things a bit less scary,
but we still had to contend with the enormous number of fans at each
hotel and outside each venue.

We added local security in every country. That made it easier to cut
through the red tape during our comings and goings. Even getting out
of parking garages had become a scary feat. The fans would move from
the front of the building to the street entrance outside the garage before
we had a chance to get into our vehicles. Everywhere we went, we had
to run in order to stay one step ahead of the fans. The girls had gotten so
aggressive that the boys actually feared for their safety at times.

The girls grabbed onto clothing, jewelry, hair or whatever they could
get. Alex lost a ring that way while onstage. A girl grabbed him so tightly, that it came off. That was the last he saw of it. He learned quickly not
to wear things that could be pulled off or at least not to let the girls grab
him like that.

Howie got more than a few pieces of clothing ripped when he tried to
be nice and got too close to the fans. It was a nerve-wracking situation
to watch. If any of the boys stopped, even just to sign autographs, girls
would jump the barricades and try to grab them. They were constantly
being warned by security to keep moving, but sometimes they just could
not resist giving a crying girl a hug. They all learned the hard way to
listen to security or get grabbed.

Slowly, the level of success they had achieved began to dawn on each
of the boys. Brian commented to me before a show that when he entered
the catering room, all heads turned. He felt like he was being treated
with a new level of respect. Each boy began to get the same impression
in his own individual way.

For his part, Alex seemed to enjoy it. It was at that point that he
asked me to start calling him AJ. I had a hard time with that because
that had always been his stage name. To me, that name did not represent who he was to me but who he was to his fans. He had taken quite a
liking to the AJ persona and used it to his advantage. He liked the way it
gained him new friends and how it made him feel like a big shot. With
all of that, he still seemed to have an air of insecurity about him. Alex
remained the people-pleaser who hated confrontation.

I started to see some subtle changes in my son that I did not care for.
He hung out a lot with the musicians and was always the big spender.
Each week he went through his per diem of hundreds of dollars too
quickly. That forced him to ask me for money. When I didn't oblige, he
went to the tour accountant and got an advance against his next check.
I did not like his new lack of respect for money.

Journal Entry, April 17, 1996: On more than one occasion, I have tried to
talk to Alex about those things. Each time, he blows me off. He said that they
are making plenty of money, so why not spread it around. Those words sounded like Lou talking, not Alex. As far as the money goes, yes, he is right, some
is being made, but by the time Lou takes out what Alex and I owe, there is
not much left. It is enough for bills and to help Mom and Dad a bit.

My son's attitude has begun to change. I feel powerless and at a loss as to
how to make him see what is happening. I tried talking to the band and
asked that they watch out for him. While I believe that sometimes they do,
most of the time they just want to party. It is of little concern to them who
pays the bill.

As the tour moved back across the Atlantic to Canada, we saw the
same levels of fan and media reaction to the boys. I made a couple of great friends in Canada. To this day, we are still in touch. It was a good
group of people to work with. Our record company rep was named
Stephan Drolet. He was a great guy who, in addition to not being too
hard on the eyes, also had a big heart. He always did everything he
could to make us feel at home. Even after the workday was over, he was
always around to ensure that we had a good time.

Chantal Blanchard, the publicist for our Canadian promoter, was a
spunky French Canadian with a great professional, yet fun, personality.
Her organizational skills helped the boys get through the interviews and
meet-and-greets as quickly as possible. We worked well together and had
fun all the time. She worked with another great person named Leesa Lee.
We made a great team and were able to keep the boys on schedule.

As we moved across Canada, fans followed in caravans of cars. On
several occasions, we had to stop so that the bus driver could get out
and tell them to stay farther away because they were making him nervous on the long night drives. It was insane.

Toronto became Alex's nightmare beginning with that tour. During
one of the promotional events, we took the boys to a television studio of
a network much like our own MTV, where they were scheduled to sing
to a small audience, sign autographs and take some pictures. It all seemed
routine until we drove up to the studio.

Leesa Lee, me
and Chantal Blanchard

There were more than five thousand girls surrounding the building.
We could not even get inside. If that were not bad enough, we had more
than our usual number of
people. Some of the boys'
family members had decided to join us for that
part of the tour. Our usual two vans grew to three.
I had been put in charge
of the family members, so
it was my job to make sure
that they got inside and
seated for the show.
Kevin's mom and Brian's
parents were there, along
with some members of
Howie's family. We pulled into the parking lot around back, where we waited until the boys got
inside.

Once we all got into the studio-and the boys cranked up their performance-the other family members looked on in awe as the fans screamed
their approval. That was a new experience for most of the other boys'
families. They had only heard about the craziness from their sons.

During the set, Randy watched over the audience, as another member of his team set up barricades outside so that a path back to the vans
could be formed. That same bodyguard was asked to develop a plan to
get the boys and us away safely since the numbers of fans outside were
growing by the minute.

That done, we waited for the boys to finish their performance.

Once the show was over, we followed the same procedure to exit the
building-the boys first, we second. I awaited our cue to leave on my
walkie-talkie, but all I could hear were girls screaming and men screaming back. Then, through the garbled noises, I heard a heart-wrenching
voice that nearly took my breath away.

"He's hurt bad, we need to get him to the hospital."

Who was hurt? One of the boys? A fan? What just happened? Questions raced through my mind. I could not interrupt the radio communications since they obviously needed to talk to each other. Finally, after
what seemed like an eternity, one of our bodyguards came back to get
us. He just looked at me with this kind of odd, scared expression on his
face and grabbed me by the arm.

I instinctively knew Alex had been hurt and said, "Okay, so now we
know who got hurt. The question is, how bad?"

The bodyguard said he did not know any details. I rushed the family
members into the van and tried to hold myself together until we got
back to the hotel. By the time we arrived and unloaded our van, Alex
had already been taken to the hospital. Randy was with him. Todd was
ready to take me there straight away.

As we drove the short distance to the hospital, Todd filled me in on
what had happened. There were supposed to be barricades outside the
studio where they boarded the vans, but someone had mistakenly erected the barricades in the front of the studio instead of at the back door
where the boys exited. Once the boys entered the unprotected no-man's
land between the studio and the vans, fans surrounded them.

Alex ran for the van and got crushed by the swarming crowd. Todd
tried to get him free. The girls were screaming so loudly that the van
driver could not hear Alex writhing in pain. His foot had slipped off the
brake and the van had run over my son's foot. When the driver realized that his foot had slipped, he
stopped the van. Unfortunately,
the van stopped while the tire was
on top of Alex's foot. Finally, Todd
got him loose and threw him inside the van. He was screaming
in pain and they rushed him to
the hospital. Well, I am here to
tell you that Alex's guardian angel was definitely watching over
him that day. His foot was not
broken and he just had a bad ankle sprain. The x-rays were clear.