BMGApparently, *NSYNC's name is truly magical.
You may have paused at least once in life to ponder how to spell the '90s and '00s boy band's name, which has been depicted in several ways. Is there an apostrophe in it? Or is it a star? Where does it go? Are you supposed to write in all caps? WHY ARE YOU YELLING?
Well, on the group's official album covers, the name appears as "*NSYNC," with a graphic of an actual star. But why is it there?
You can thank Israeli-born, London-based celebrity illusionist and psychic Uri Geller, who had long taken credit for the star. Geller, a friend of the late Michael Jackson, rose to fame due to his mental tricks, namely bending spoons and stopping wristwatches.
"The funny thing is, Uri Geller, who bends spoons...We saw him in the U.K., and this is when we were obviously establishing *NSYNC, and he goes, 'I see something. It has to do with suns or stars or something with astronomy in your career,'" former band member Joey Fatone told The Huffington Post. "And it's funny, a year later when we did the first album, for America, they had a star in it."
The story has long appeared on Geller's website. And *NSYNC was not the only famous pop group he inspired, apparently.
"I visited the Spice Girls in a studio in London around five years ago, they were planning to go to America and I bent a spoon for them and told them to take it with them to the U.S. to bring them positive energy. It was a similar experience with N'Sync [sic]," the site states. "They were playing small shows in Germany and here (the U.K.) and wanted to break in America I went to see them, talked to them, motivated the group, bent a spoon for them and said, 'Keep this with you as a talisman, as a tool for your mind when you go back to America.'"
"By the way, the idea to use the * in the N*sync logo came from me [sic]," the website reads. "I advised the guys to put a star on their records to ensure big success, looks like it worked! Both bands have been catapulted to success."