Customer Reviews

The Hit Charade: Lou Pearlman, Boy Bands, and the Biggest Ponzi Scheme in U.S. History

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Early on in Hit Charade one of Aviation Entrepreneur/Boy Band Impresario/Con Man/All Around Large Guy Lou Pearlman's business partners declares "He had the same sort of blimp vision that I had!" For a split second after reading that line I wondered if Blimp Vision required special glasses like a 3-D movie. Then I realized what a perfect metaphor blimps are for any of Pearlman's business ventures: large, full of hot air and liable to explode.

At the three-way intersection of True Crime, Business Expose and Celebrity Tell-all, Hit Charade is a winner. Tyler Gray tells the unlikely story of a boy from Brooklyn who conned nearly everyone he met in pursuit of his dreams of aviation greatness and then, bizarrely, decided to go into the entertainment business where he "rescued" pop music from the clutches of grunge. Explaining the ins and outs of any business related fraud is difficult. Explaining it without inducing comas is even more difficult. Gray manages to explain what Pearlman did clearly and entertainingly. Of course, he has awesome material for this venture.

While Gray can't provide any juicy tidbits from the behind the scenes stories of The Backstreet Boys or *NSync, he can tell us about the time Pearlman taught a wanna-be boy band star the "hit, hit, pump hit thrust maneuver." In public. On stage. He can also quote Pearlman telling a interviewer of the aquatic toys at his home, "If these Jet Skis could talk they would tell you about all of our artists who have been riding them."

Sadly, Jet Skis weren't the only things being taken for rides in Lou "Big Papa" Pearlman's world. Apparently taking business lessons from the movie The Producers, Pearlman liked to sell shares in his corporations over and over and over. Anyone can give 1000% to their company, Lou liked to sell 1000% of his company. He was also quite the forgerer, happily producing his own letters of insurance from Lloyd's and AIG. (These stories hark back to the days when a letter from AIG inspired confidence in investors.) All this helped Big Papa to steal the life savings of hundreds of people to keep himself in Jet Skis, cornflower blue Rolls Royces and fine restaurants. Along the way we have ex-Nazis, pretty boys, home-care nurses who stay for ten years and Art Garfunkel.

There are dark rumors that the Jet Skis weren't the only things being ridden by artists at Casa de Big Papa. Gray, to his great credit, doesn't wallow in the gutter on this. He reports the rumors, makes it clear that no one has ever made a verified claim and moves on. Of course, the presence of a casting couch would be positively classy compared to the facts surrounding Pearlman's model scouting venture. The business revolved around "scouts" asking strangers if they've ever "considered going into modelling" and then selling them $1,000 modelling portfolios. Bad enough, you say? Well, add on the fact that even the absence of a limb didn't stop these scouts from convincing the naive that a successful runway career was just a check away.

Until the Madoff scandal Lou Pearlman held claim to being the perpetrator of the largest Ponzi scheme in US history. Not unlike Bernard Madoff, it's obvious that Big Papa couldn't do this on all his own. Nor are his crimes without a similarly ghastly human toll including suicide. But unlike Bernie, Lou made a run for it only to be caught by an *NSync fan at a Bali resort. As the saying goes, publicity doesn't kiss back. Tyler Gray's prose is almost perfectly suited to this story. He has just the right balance of factual reportage prose with snarky asides like "he threw his fat assets behind the model scouting business." Pure gold.

Pearlman has moved from his plus-size mansion to the big house for an extended stay. For fraud, not in punishment for making The House of Carter possible. One could make a case that Pearlman made a life's work out of exploiting the secret dreams of others but I'm not convinced Lou ever thought anything through to that degree. He was just an improviser who kept the gag going for an astonishingly long time.

Kindle Note: Photographs are included.

The saga of Lou Pearlman will eventually occupy a prominent chapter in any book on the greatest ponzi schemes of the 21st (and late 20th) century. It is downright fascinating how a man like Pearlman could not only bilk some many people out of Millions but also somehow manage to break in the music industry as a novice and churn out acts like the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC.

This is one of those books you just won't be able to put down. Tyler Gray does a very good of researching the history of Pearlman's business endeavors and the cast of characters that always hung around him. While the beginning part of the book is a tad slow, the story just soars once he shows how Pearlman broke into the music business, and then how his empire falls apart in 2005 and 2006.

My only slight critique of this book is Gray's reluctance to confirm stories about Pearlman's homosexual proclivities. Bryan Burrough's 'Vanity Fair' article on Pearlman did a much better job of discussing this and for whatever reason, Gray seems hesistant to tackle this issue. While this doesn't take away from the main story, it is definitely an interesting aspect that should have been explored more fully.

Regardless, this is a superb piece of investigative journalism and a downright fascinating look at a multi-decade Ponzi scheme.

I became interested in Ponzi schemes and financial scandals, and the individuals who run them, somewhere between Enron and Bernie Madoff. I have read many books on the subject, and have to say that "The Hit Charade" is one of the best and most entertaining on the subject. The author does a great job of exposing and presenting the facts behind lie after lie told by Mr. Pearlman, a world class con-man. This book should be required reading for anyone considering investing with any individual claiming that they can grow your money. It shows how easily one can be taken-in, and taken to the cleaners.

I am from Orlando and I thought that I had an inside track on Pearlman, and what he was all about. As is the case with many people from Orlando, I know someone who was in business with, and got screwed over by Lou. After reading this book, I realize that I only knew the tip of the highest snowflake, on the tallest iceberg, that was Lou Pearlman. Often in cases like this, an author will try to pinpoint a time or event where the subject took a turn for the worse. Not Tyler Gray, by this omission he underscores the fact that Lou never had any good intentions, and that all of his efforts were driven by greed and deceit. The author has a relentless dedication to detail and timeline, which leads the reader through Lou's upward, as well as, downward spiral. It is truly a crazy tail of someone who had it all (read: NEVER had it all, but made people believe that he did, so that they would give him money) and lost it.

Tyler Gray had a lot of information to work with to unravel the twisted story of Lou Pearlman in "Hit Charade." As one of the contributors to this tome, I realize that I never could have pulled it all together the way the author did. Gray cleverly used Lou Pearlman's "Bands, Brands, and Billions" as a base to discover the truth behind Pearlman's egocentric ramblings and faux rules of success. He shows how Mr. Pearlman's historical review of his career was a series of lies built upon lies. Many of Pearlman's stories were true, however they belonged to his associates and not to his own imaginary life history. Gray had to filter the facts from fiction and he spoke with many people who were involved with various stages of Pearlman's life from childhood to his incarceration. The book examines how Pearlman used Mission Impossible-like scenarios in order to deceive the people who believed in him most, his family, friends, and business associates who suffered great losses (and not just financially). What is even sadder are the stories of elderly investors who lost their life savings to a phoney investment plan that should have been questioned a lot earlier. The successes that Pearlman had with boy bands masked the fact that he was building a house of cards that was bound to crumble sooner or later. Too bad it couldn't be sooner! The book appeals to a wide audience, including those who are fans of boy bands, financial manipulations, and behind the scenes revelations. Personally, when we were growing up, I looked at Lou as the little brother that I never had (we were only children in an apartment building where everyone else had a sibling). I wish that my attempts to keep him in line met with success but he stubbornly had to have it his way.

Tyler Gray has penned a page burner with his new release "The Hit Charade" I found myself glued to his book and ignoring commitments and chores to devour the 278 pages in their entirety. Finally flipping the last page and letting out a big last gasp as the weight of Pearlman's relentless financial piracy sank in and hit me hard in the heart as I felt for Pearlman's victims and their losses. Amidst all of the juggling of figures, and finances, and false fronts, Gray laid the groundwork for the reader to fully realize the poison that came from the bite of this snake in the grass. Tremendous reporting of fact finding amongst the tall-tales of Pearlman from self made Lemonade Mogul/Newsie to riding his fleet of Busted Blimps to Boy Band Impresario. The biggest thing to note reading about the scheming Porkers life's work, was just how easy Gray made it to wrap my head around such a complex ruse that was Pearlman's "Ponzi Scheme", and how easily digestible he kept it all, without the feeling that the complexities of the ins and outs were being dumbed down for ease of consumption. A well crafted thorough walk in the shoes of a scum-bag schemer.

A sometimes eerie read amidst all of the financial turmoil and Wall Street finger pointing happening, as I realized that this gargantuan liar that was Pearlman, squandered so many fortunes in front of the hot-lights and spotlights of media; with nobody the wiser till it was too late. I closed the book scratching my head and wondering how could this happen? How could this be done unnoticed? Who could do such a thing? Gray avoids speculation as to the motives of Pearlman, and delivers the goods so readers can do their own soul searching as to why another human could intentionally murder the financial lives of so many.

It just plain read well. Tyler Gray's "The Hit Charade" took me on a walk around a carefully constructed web of lies and kept the balance while delivering the facts amongst the spins and yarns that fell from the chubby faced fake. In the end, with all of Pearlman's pandering to be dubbed "papa" by his victims the only thing he managed to father were his lies. Take a bow fat man.

One of the more amazing things about Lou Pearlman is that he cheated so many people in so many different businesses for years without facing any real consequences. He swindled everybody from little old ladies to Bank of America. Tyler Gray offers a compelling and chilling tale. If you ever thought the government would protect you from scamsters, this should convince you otherwise. As someone who watched this sordid tale unfold first hand, I'm glad Tyler was able to capture it in a book

I'm always one who loves a good quick read and Gray delivers with Hit Charade. While you may find the topic to be a mishmash of odd subjects - who can understand a ponzi scheme?? - the author's writing style makes it fun and understandable, and in the end it's really more about the man and why and how he bilked thousands of people out of millions. Not to mention the chapters about how Pearlman came to build the empire we know as boy bands....

I read the whole book quickly..within a span of days. Once you start, you dont want to put it down. Whether it's reading about Pearlman's failed blimp business (yes, you read that right) to differing accounts of whether the felon actually wrestled nude with his boy band charges, it's all told in a voice that compels you to turn the page.

If you're ready for a book about the real "skinny" on the music business, this might be it. Might. I'll never know. This reader gave it 100+ pages and then shelved it. On only a handful of pages was there even any slight mention of the business of music...nothing beyond the band names "N*Sync" or "Backstreet Boys," of which this edition is presumably the entire focus.

If you want to catch up on boy-band manager Lou Pearlman's adventures in his Trans Continental air businesses, his passion for blimps [remember the MetLife Blimp and Snoopy on TV? Apparently, Pearlman's.], his bogus agreements, overseas contacts, capers in conning, phony business promises and long limos, his child years with the lemonade stands and newspaper deliveries, it's all here. One guesses these early business episodes were included as background to illustrate the preliminaries that evolved into even bigger money scams...which eventually landed Pearlman in the slammer.

Reading along, I was sure I was "soon" to get to pages jam-packed with the inside track on the music business, complete with sham contracts, shady characters, fake signatures, and a lot of Pearlman schmoozing...but enough was enough. Never happened. One-third of the way through, and there was still zip about big-time (or small-time) music business deals and dealings. Even so, up to the give-in point, it was mildly interesting, easy reading...albeit repetitive and off track. On and on, it all seemed irrelevant to and distant from the book's touted purpose.

-No doubt, a great book for the researcher; but even for the casual reader who managed less than half-way through, in typical Lou Pearlman style, early promises about the book never measured up. It's rather just another thin bio of Lou the con-man....

Tyler Gray masquerades as an author. This book sucks. It is poorly written and researched. By the author's own admissions, it is filled with half truths, lies, and indirect innuendo. As in all of his other reporting, Gray ignores important information if it doesn't fit his own foregone conclusions. He had it all laid out in front of him. He could have broken the story of the century, but he missed it. He can't add up the math or the stories. The book, like the author, is superficial, shallow and clueless. This is a hard book to read and easy to put down. I wouldn't recommend wasting time or money on this book or anything by Tyler Gray. It is my understanding that NO major publisher has ever shown an interest in another book by Tyler Gray.