Lance Bass Gave Jason Collins "Some Very Good Advice" About Coming Out as Gay

Former boybander reveals he talked to NBA star before his big announcement

Jason Collins got some words of wisdom from Lance Bass before his big coming-out announcement yesterday.

It turns out that the gay NBA star called the boybander for advice on how to handle the media after coming out of the closet.

"I just got off the phone with him and he's been trying to plan this for a very long time, contemplating if he wanted to do this," Bass said on his SiriusXM radio show. "In fact, he said he was going to call me months ago, but he got too scared."

Bass, who doesn't know Collins personally, said it was mutual friends who got them in contact with each other.

"I gave him some very good advice today, because everyone of course wants to interview him and who's going to get that first sit-down?" Bass said.

"When I came out, I had 24 hours to decide what was going to happen," Bass said of his 2006 People mag coming out cover. "What I wish I could have done back then was to have a couple of days to sit down with HRC, sit down with GLAAD."

The former ‘N Sync singer says he "totally" relates to Collins' decision to come out during his time off from playing pro basketball.

"He finally got to sit back and think about himself, and relationships and love and all of that type of stuff because he had the time," he said. "And that's when he started becoming more comfortable with it and finding out about himself. And that's exactly what happened with me when we went on the hiatus after the last 'N Sync show."

"He's such a nice, nice guy and I think people are going to fall in love with this guy," Bass said. "When you see him in these sit-down interviews, everyone's going to fall in love with him and I think people are going to just love the fact that he's playing."