‘N Sync say they will never reunite

Bye Bye Bye, ‘N Sync sang in 2000, two years before their last single. And according JC Chasez, they are still not coming back. “Nope, nope, nope,” he said this week, brushing off talk of a reunion.

“It was fun, but we’re done with it,” Chasez told MTV News. Despite successful comebacks by Take That, Backstreet Boys and New Kids On the Block, Chasez and the rest of ‘N Sync have no desire to follow up their 1990s success with still more renditions of Tearin’ Up My Heart and Girlfriend. “I keep in touch with all of [the other members],” he said, insisting they have no intention to reunite.

Though Chasez has pursued a relatively successful post-Sync career, as a solo artist and reality TV judge, the group has a yet more famous alumnus. The young Justin Timberlake won hearts and induced screams alongside Chasez, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick.

“We had fun,” Chasez said, recalling dance practice with Timberlake. “We always encouraged each other to be better. It was never competitive. If he [did] better, we all did better. If I did better, we all did better. We just had different styles. Justin was fluid and more the crooner, and I was more high-energy and power.”

Though ‘N Sync have not toured since 2002, they never officially broke up. This is allegedly a hiatus – albeit one that may never end. While Chasez and Timberlake have kept busy in the intervening years, at least one member seems eager to return to those halcyon days. “There will always be room for [a reunion,” Chris Kirkpatrick told a radio station in 2007. In 2008 he repeated the suggestion, telling OK magazine, “I’m sure we’ll be back”.

Even if Kirkpatrick convinces Chasez and Timberlake, they are unlikely to call the group’s former manager. Lou Perlman, the mogul who created both ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, is serving a 25-year jail sentence for fraud.