Ryan Gosling predicted the Backstreet Boys would never make it: 'Cut to, he was wrong'

Ryan Gosling is many things — A baker! A lifesaver for people and animals alike! — but he falls short in his ability to accurately predict the tastes of pop music fans.

We know this because the Backstreet Boys revealed Tuesday, as all five members appeared on Watch What Happens Live, that the La La Land star expected the group to fail. The story goes that Gosling lived in the same apartment building as member AJ McLean when BSB formed.

“I told him that Backstreet Boys is gonna be huge and he’s like, ‘It’s not gonna happen, bro. New Kids [on the Block] did their thing, you know, whatever,’” McLean said. “Cut to, he was wrong.”

Boy, was he ever. The group, which also includes Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, Howie Dorough and Kevin Richardson, went on to move more than 100 million records and become the best-selling boy band of all time.

They were so big that they were invited to rock one of the most memorable Super Bowl halftime shows of all time. (No, not that one!) They were given the choice of performing as part of the mini-concert with some of the biggest artists of the day or singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

“That half time was actually *NSYNC, Britney and Aerosmith,” Carter explained. “We chose the national anthem. So looking back, though, we sort of regret it a little bit here and there, because it’s gotten so big over the years.”

Carter mentioned, too, that the members of *NSYNC, another popular boy band that should have failed by Gosling’s logic, could make for good collaborators in the future. Justin Timberlake has been a solo artist since 2002, and he hasn’t performed with the group in years. However, members Lance Bass, JC Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick and Joey Fatone performed together at Coachella in 2019.

“Maybe in the future, after we’re done with our world tour,” Carer said, “maybe we could do a tour with Backstreet and the four of them, maybe like a package tour.”

After all, BSB teamed with New Kids on a successful string of concerts that both groups co-headlined. They called it NKOTBSB.

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