Con Man Lou Pearlman Is Related to Songwriter Art Garfunkel — Now Those Are Troubled Waters

When thinking about Lou Pearlman, a lot of things probably come to mind. He was a dreamer and a con man who suckered a lot of people out of a ton of money by way of a Ponzi scheme. He was a talent manager responsible for two of the most significant boy bands of the late '90s: The Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. He managed a slew of others and stole from all of them.

Before he was any of these things, he was simply Louis Jay Pearlman from Queens, N.Y. He came from a Jewish family who went to synagogue, attended bar and bat mitzvahs, and occasionally spent time with his relative who would go on to become one of the greatest musical contributors to the 1960s. The rumors are true; Lou Pearlman and Art Garfunkel are related. One of them sang about troubled waters while the other waded into them. Here's what we know.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Pearlman and Garfunkel's mothers were sisters, making the boys first cousins. Pearlman would later say he got his love of music from Garfunkel, though the former member of Simon & Garfunkel has never publicly addressed this. Before the folk duo became the hit makers we know today, Pearlman said he would often see them perform in Greenwich Village.

Pearlman's childhood friend and neighbor, Alan Gross, told the outlet, "Art's parents would drive us back to Mitchell Gardens," which is the name of the co-op where they both lived. Garfunkel was 13 years older than Pearlman and by the time the younger cousin's bar mitzvah rolled around, "The Sound of Silence" was already No. 1 on the Billboard charts. Despite his rising fame, Garfunkel made an appearance at Pearlman's party.

The last time Garfunkel acknowledged his controversial cousin was for Pearlman's 50th birthday in 2004. He recorded a video greeting in which he told Pearlman he loved him. After Pearlman was knee-deep in legal troubles, Garfunkel said nothing publicly. Guess you could call that the actual sound of silence.

For very obvious reasons, Garfunkel chose to distance himself from his fraudster family member after he was sent to prison. However, not every member of the Garfunkel clan was down to disown Pearlman. IssueWire reported that Garfunkel's son James visited his first cousin once removed while he was unable to remove himself from incarceration.

During these semi-social calls, James and Pearlman evidently discussed forming new boy bands. Also in one meeting was talent developer Emily Dorsett, who later told ABC News, "He was very upbeat. He wanted to recreate Making the Band. He wanted me to help him try to get that going, and I told him I would." Obviously, that never happened. Pearlman referenced James's visits in a 2014 interview with Billboard but when they reached out to James and Garfunkel, both declined to comment.