98 Degrees Is Fully Aware They Were the 'Non-Dancing Boy Band,' Jokes Nick Lachey

Mar. 15, 2025

98 Degrees dancing in 1997.Photo:Tim Mosenfelder/Getty

Tim Mosenfelder/Getty

98 Degreesdidn’t sign up to be a boy band, but fate has other plans.

BothNick LacheyandJeff Timmonsappear in the new Paramount+ documentaryLarger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands,discussing how the R&B-centric group ended up mixed into the boy band craze.

“The term boy band was one that we were very hesitant to embrace early on. We never thought of ourselves as a boy band, at least in the conventional sense,” Lachey, 51, explains.

“And so we resisted big time, the label of boy band. But then we got very aware that his was a movement that was happening and we were probably lucky to get kind of swept up in it.”

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Nick Lachey, Justin Jeffre, Jeff Timmons Drew Lachey in early 98 Degrees days in 2000.Tim Roney/Getty

Tim Roney/Getty

Timmons, 51, agrees, adding, “The plan originally for 98 Degrees was to sell us to the public as a true R&B group.”

Though they were initially resistant, after talking it over, Timmons says, “We thought, ‘Maybe it’s not a bad idea.’ "

98 Degrees.Source: Nick Lachey/Instagram

Laughing, Timmons notes, “At the time, boy bands were all about dancing and Lord knows, we were not all about dancing.”

Lachey agrees that the choreography piece was tough for them.

“We always joked that we were the non-dancing boy band. We never auditioned, we never went through dance class. We put ourselves together, we moved to California, we sang for people and we got discovered. And from there, we kind of got swept up into a whole other thing.”

Hear more about 98 Degrees' rise to boy band fame, alongside the stories of other boy bands, inLarger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands, now streaming on Paramount+.

source: people.com