Debbie Gibson Says Lance Bass Loaned Her $5K in a Brown Paper Bag

In her memoir, Eternally Electric: The Message In My Music, Debbie Gibson opens up about the highest of highs in her life and the lowest of lows, including her onetime dwindling bank account that left her living situation “up in the air.” 

The “Only In My Dreams” singer was living in Los Angeles in the late aughts as her financial situation got increasingly dire. She was also having bouts of pain, and she wrote, “Cracks were beginning to show in the armor, presumably from stress and from having no consistency in my life.”

So, spending money I didn’t have, I put a down payment on a rustic, two-bedroom, ivy-covered house on Forest Knoll Drive, off Sunset Plaza Drive, and now I had a mortgage. I’m not a big fan of mortgages: Don’t pay the note and see who owns your home. I had bought my two New York apartments outright, but this time around, my financial advisors encouraged me to take a loan, and, impressionable during a confusing period, I was swayed. Given how stubborn I can be, that was kinda strange, but financial investments weren’t my forte. In other areas of my life, I am very clear about what I want and what I’m doing, but this was a period of emotional chaos.

The “Electric Youth” songstress and her mom-ager, Diane Gibson, were constantly trying to line up projects, but things weren’t panning out. That is, the singer said, “Unless I wanted to do some really demeaning projects.”

Refusing to go down that road, Gibson, 54, strived to keep her integrity, but it was coming at a cost. Then, though, a famous friend came through with some financial reprieve via an unremarkable delivery method. 

I had gotten so far behind with my bills, and my living situation was so up in the air, I even had to temporarily rehome my cat. I’ll never forget the day when Lance Bass’s assistant delivered five thousand dollars cash in a brown paper bag, a loan from a true friend who knew I needed some support and has since never made me feel less than.

That was a humbling moment, one of those times where you feel so vulnerable, the earth could swallow you up whole. The way Lance didn’t flinch and sent help immediately—I was so grateful to know such kindness in the midst of such a surreal and painful chapter in my life.

The 4-figure loan was one in a long line of thoughtful gestures from Bass, 46. Thinking back to her 12-show stint as an opener for *NSYNC during 2001’s PopOdyssey tour, Gibson recalled getting into a tiff with the boy band’s management team about wanting to use her own piano for her set. 

So when the boys’ management declared I was a “track act”—“We’re not traveling with her grand piano for one song; that’s ridiculous”—Lance Bass went to bat for me: “You give her whatever the f— she wants.” He and I have been friends ever since.

Eternally Electric by Debbie Gibson is available now, wherever books are sold.