Backstreet Boys' AJ McLean is back, alright, with a new TV show about beauty

AJ McLean, beauty entrepreneur and member of the Backstreet Boys, has found his latest project: the new Paramount+ reality competition show The Fashion Hero: A New Kind of Beautiful.

The musician has turned heads over the course of his career for his style choices. Now, he wants to share everything he's learned about learning to love and express yourself for who you are, through his latest TV show.

He sat down with host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to talk about his own journey with beauty, why he's not ashamed to say he wears makeup every day, and what he hopes viewers and contestants take away from the program.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin:  I love the Backstreet Boys, and AJ McLean is my favorite. He recently dropped by the Commotion studio to talk about his new show. He's the host of The Fashion Hero: A New Kind of Beautiful on Paramount+. It's a reality show and it challenges beauty standards by getting contestants to look inwards.

AJ: In the world of today, which is run by social media — I'm guilty of it as much as the next guy — you fall into this mindset that what you see on social media, what you see in magazines is what you're supposed to look like, what you're supposed to talk like, what you're supposed to dress like. And that's a complete farce. 

In this show, we are challenging these contestants from all over the world to really face themselves and to let everyone know that you are perfectly imperfect…. Some of the challenges vary — from looking at a photo of your younger self, to looking in the mirror and saying three things that you love about yourself ... It's so easy for us to talk down about ourselves. It's so easy to get caught up in external validation.

Elamin: That sounds like a journey. Some of the experiences that these people have gone through … they all have a complicated relationship with beauty in some kind of way. You're the host of the show. You're trying to pull this show together. How do you find yourself as a host relating to the stories that they're telling?

AJ: I can relate to literally every single person that's on this show in one way or another. Even today, 22 months sober, I still have struggles. I still deal with these things. 

Elamin: Congrats on sobriety, man. 

AJ: Thank you, thank you. I still deal with self-doubt and insecurities. People are shocked when I tell them that I still suffer from low self-esteem. I'm getting better, it's a journey. When I'm doing what I do for a living and I'm on stage, I feel untouchable. I feel the most comfortable in my own skin. I feel impenetrable. The second I walk off that stage, I'm humanizing myself in a sense where maybe I'm not okay with myself, or I'm uncomfortable or I'm awkward. I'm learning to accept that and to go, "You know what? That's okay. You don't need to always be 'on.'"

A lot of why I went down the road of drugs and alcohol is because of this "piece of shit-ism," is what I call it. Living in this piece of shit-ism daily where I feel less-than, knowing that I'm getting to a place where I'm no better and no worse than the person sitting next to me — that's what I want all of these people to take from this show, even the viewers: to know you are no better and no worse than anyone else, and that's okay. We've made mistakes. We're not mistakes.

Elamin: I'm relieved to hear you say that when you're on stage, that's at least a space that feels safe and comfortable for you.

AJ: For me? Yeah.

Elamin: Because one of the reconsiderations that we are going through culturally at the moment is sort of are looking at the way that we treated pop stars in the 90s and the early 2000s, and we're having some questions about how much control was exerted over your lives, over your image, over the ways that you were portrayed or sold to people. When you think about that now, how do you think about it? How much control did you have back then? 

AJ: Oh, there was zero control back then. I mean, we were put into this bubble of clean-cut, everybody matchy-matchy … A lot of it was inspired by groups that we looked up to — Boyz II Men, The Temptations — they all were a unified front…. But then, around 19 years old is when I started on my journey of self-discovery where I'm like, "I don't want to be cookie-cutter. I'm trying to figure out who I am." So I get my first tattoo, I start dying my hair — whatever I can do to express myself as an individual. 

Elamin: Within the confines of…

AJ: Yeah, and it was a shock at first, I'm sure, to some people. But then now almost 30 years later, there's really not a lot of shocking things I can do anymore. I'm not really out for the whole shock-value thing anymore either. I do feel the most comfortable I've ever felt in my skin today, but I know that there's still room to grow. 

Elamin: I like your conception of beauty because it sounds like you've gone through quite a few different steps to get to this conception of beauty — sort of feels earned in a way, coming from this journey of having it dictated to you, to this place now. Do you remember a moment when your idea of what beauty is kind of started to change in a way?

AJ: I think for me it was probably my late teens, early twenties when I really started to gravitate towards fashion and the whole culture of beauty, fashion. That's when I started painting my nails, wearing guy-liner.

Elamin: That's a beautiful orange [nail colour], by the way. 

AJ: Thank you, thank you. I wear makeup every day. I have no shame in saying that. I put it on every single day, even if I'm just going to the gym.

Elamin: What have you got on right now?

AJ: Right now I've got NW30 from MAC, that's what I wear for my foundation. And as far as nail polish, I'm wearing my own brand, which is Ava Dean. It's for everyone — men, women, boys, girls, doesn't matter. Beauty is for everyone. I started to experiment with different patterns, different colors, mix-matching outfits. Some of them were definitely a miss, there's no question. 

There was one award show and for whatever reason, all the guys are in dark colors or in suits, and I decided I'm going to be in all-white with a top hat and look like Willy Wonka meets a really bad washed-up magician. The photos are so atrocious because I really stick out like a sore thumb — but I also wanted to be different because that's me. 

Elamin: Well, then let's talk about the fashion here one more time. You met so many people through the filming of the show, is there a moment for you that stands out in the filming of the show?  

AJ: There's quite a few, to be honest. There is an episode where we have a bunch of inflatable tubes and things that you're covered in, but with words written on them — things you want to let go of, that have brought you down. You're running an obstacle course with these things on, and as you accomplish these different levels of this obstacle course, you're shedding these things from you, you're letting them go. 

You could just see the emotion in these amazing people as they're shedding these things and leaving them behind. It was a really amazing cast, a bunch of great humans, and I've stayed in touch with a few. One of the young ladies, Farah, who's from Toronto, she came to see our show when we came through here last summer, and she has been thriving since we finished taping in February. So, this show really is going to change people's lives. I really, truly believe that.

Elamin: Incredible. Thank you so much, dude.

AJ: Appreciate it. A pleasure, brother.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.