It’s been sixteen years since Backstreet Boys split up, but recently boy band member AJ McLean has revealed something interesting about his personal life.
And it’s about supporting his 9-year-old daughter in changing her name.
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The ’90s boyband was basically the soundtrack to the decade.
The super-successful group has sold over 100 million records worldwide.
In fact, this gives them the accolade of bestselling boyband of all time.
They were the first-ever boyband to achieve a number one hit in 3 different decades.
They had some pretty impressive stats.
And it was only last year, bandmate AJ McLean opened up about his past struggles – and how the band helped him out.
According to PEOPLE, the Backstreet Boys singer got candid about his twenty-year struggle with addiction to drugs and alcohol.
“So literally 10 months ago, I went to go see my girl Shania Twain in Vegas,” said McLean.
“Before I even got on the plane, I had already mapped out the whole night. I knew where I was going to go get my drugs. I knew where I was going to go get drunk.
“I knew all of it and I figured, ‘Okay, it’s one night. As long as I don’t go past a certain time and I don’t smell like it, I can go have a nice last hurrah and then come back home. My wife won’t know; everything’s going to be great,'” he recalled.
“It never ever works out that way,” added McLean.
“I never slept. I missed my first two flights back home and reeked of alcohol when I got home. My wife and I had always had this agreement, which was, if I smelled like alcohol, I wasn’t allowed to play with my kids — I couldn’t be around my kids.”
McLean recalled the moment that will stick with him for the rest of his life.
“What really hit me was the moment, my youngest daughter Lyric said to me that night, ‘You don’t smell like my daddy.’
“And when she said that to me, that was it. Enough said. I felt disgusting,” he added.
“That was it for me…
“As we say in the sober world, that was my moment of surrender.
“That was the moment I dropped to my knees and I said, ‘God, I cannot do this on my own. I can’t. I have tried and I have failed miserably. So help a brother out,” he said.
“Literally the very next day, I went to a sober living house to celebrate a friend of mine’s three years sobriety date.
“I was still hungover, but my sponsor looked at me and said, ‘Okay, he’s here. I see the final desperation in his eyes,” McLean continued.
“The next day he said, ‘Be at my house at six o’clock and we’re going to start the work.’ I showed up at 5:20.
“I’m like, ‘I’m in this, dude. I’m in it.’ I’ve been in it for the last 10 months. It’s the hardest I’ve ever had to work,” he concluded.
But since this change last year, the forty-four-year-old singer has opened up about his personal life in more detail…
Most recently about his 9-year-old daughter…
McLean shares 2 daughters, Lyric, 5, and Ava, 9 with wife Rochelle.
But it seems that Ava has had a change of heart when it comes to her name.
According to Daily Mail, McClean expressed that, although he and his wife, Rochelle Karidis, did not expect the change…
They were fully supportive of their child’s decision.
This comes as his daughter wanted to change her name.
A choice that wasn’t taken lightly.
During the interview with PEOPLE, McClean said he was still fond of his daughter’s former name…
“It is her body, it’s her name, it’s her everything. And she’s still Ava. She’ll always be Ava to me,” he said.
But above everything he wants his daughter to be happy.
He shared that at first he and his wife questioned if her decision was their daughter questioning her sexuality…
“When my daughter asked to change her name to Elliott, initially, I didn’t know if it was a transgender thing, which it is not, but it is a personal choice,” he said.
McClean then added that he and Karidis wanted to let their daughter make her own choices.
“Whatever reasoning it is, that’s hers, and I’m going to support it a million percent, my wife will [too],” he stated.
McClean admitted that his daughter chose to change her name in an effort to differentiate herself from her friends.
He said that she told him:
“‘Dad, I just feel like my name is not that unique and not that original, and there’s a lot of Avas at dance and a lot of Avas at school.'”
But McClean also said that he and his wife wanted to encourage their children to follow their aspirations.
And that’s exactly why he supports his daughters decision to change her name.
“Whatever journey both my girls have, I will be in their corner a million percent…
“My wife will be in their corner and support them, whatever their path is and whatever their journey is.
