Former NSYNC star Lance Bass has stated that he was bullied by Perez Hilton into announcing that he was gay. The singer stated that Hilton had launched a ‘malicious’ campaign against him whereby he had just 24 hours to ‘decide to come out or not’. Bass came out to his family, friends and fans in 2006 as he felt like he was being forced to do so. “Two years before I came out I was really bullied on the internet by bloggers,” Lance told Attitude magazine. “That’s when Perez Hilton just started and was just really malicious against me. “So, because of the bloggers like him hounding me, all the other magazine started calling me and saying, ‘Look, we know you’re gay, you can write the story with or without us, but we have to write it’,” Lance, who is now married to Michael Turchin, continued. “I decided to go with People and I think they did a great job,” he said. “I had 24 hours to decide if I was going to come out or not, and within 24 hours it was on the stands. “I had a lot of pressures on me at that point. Not only was I keeping the secret from my family but I also had this career with four of my best friends. “I knew, in the late 1990s/early 2000s, that if I came out, people would hate NSYNC, and that would be the end of our career. “It wasn’t until I realised there wasn’t going to be another NSYNC album that I felt ready,” he added.