Joey Fatone Recalls a Fan Showing Up to His Door, Telling His Family That He Fathered Her Child in an Attempted Paternity Scam
Joey Fatone Recalls a Fan Showing Up to His Door, Telling His Family That He Fathered Her Child in an Attempted Paternity Scam
Staff AuthorTue, April 28, 2026 at 4:48 PM UTC
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Joey FatoneCredit: Phillip Faraone/Getty -
Joey Fatone experienced an unsettling situation when he received word from his family that a woman showed up on their doorstep, claiming to be the mother of his child
Fatone didn't believe that he could have fathered the child, but was willing to go through the process to determine paternity
The process never got that far after Fatone noticed some paperwork discrepancies that ultimately helped him discover it was a scam
Joey Fatone has a fan show up at his door with potentially life-changing news.
The executive producer of ID's Boy Band Confidential: Deep Cuts shares many of his own stories throughout the docuseries, including a paternity scam a fan attempted on Fatone while he was out of town, touring with *NSYNC in their early days of success.
"I had one girl that came to my parents house when I was on the road, knocked on the door. My dad opens up the door and there's a young girl standing there and she goes, ‘Hi, my name is such and such. That's your son's daughter' My dad's like, ‘I'm sorry?' " Fatone recalled.
"My mother calls me, my mom's hysterical crying going, ‘There's a woman here that says this is your daughter. I don't even know what to say. You could talk to her.' And she puts her on the phone… she's like ‘Hey, I'm such and such. I don't want any money. We met a while back,' and it was the first performance we ever did as NSYNC, which was around 1996. What this woman told me is that we met, we hung out, we had a great time that night and then I hadn't seen her since. I'm thinking to myself, ‘My career is over. Somebody's telling me I have a kid. Is it my kid?' "
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NSYNC American Pop Group members JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick, Lance Bass and Justin Timberlake in August 1997 in London, UK.Credit: Jason Buckner/Mirrorpix via Getty
When his tour concluded, he was shocked to discover the woman had pursued legal action against him.
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"All of a sudden, I get slapped with a paternity lawsuit, saying that I need to go in with this woman to do a blood test. Then all of a sudden, I get a piece of paper with a birth certificate with her name, my name on it, the footprint, all of it. My mother's losing her mind."
The paperwork turned out to be an important piece of evidence for Fatone. When he took a close look, he noticed something wasn't right.
Joey Fatone in "Boy Band Confidential"Credit: Investigation Discovery / ID
"The font was in one type and then my name was in a completely different type of font and you can see that it was white out on it," he explained.
"The woman was just making the whole thing up. Basically, she wanted me to get a paternity test, take a photo of all of us walking into it so she would get paid by whoever wanted to list the story. And that was the only reason why.”
Boy Band Confidential: Deep Cuts premieres Monday, April 27 at 11:00 p.m. ET/PT on ID and will be available to stream on HBO Max.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
