25 favorite ’80s and ’90s teenage heartthrobs and what they’re doing now
By Sundi Rose
New Kids On The Block
What made them a heartthrob: I don’t have to run down their popular songs or videos. We remember them all. And I imagine more than plenty of you reading this owned some kind of NKOTB merch. This group of Boston honeys was made for stardom. It’s like they were manufactured in a heartthrob factory especially for young American girls in the early ’90s. I won’t say they are the first boyband (The Jackson 5 take that honor in my opinion), but they are certainly the first boy band to make it a brand and a force of the culture.
The formula for success is simple and carried on long into the late ’90s and early aughts with the likes of 98 Degrees and N’Sync. You take a handful of handsome white guys, carve out different “personalities” for each of them, and produce music that is catchy, vaguely romantic, and won’t offend anyone.
What they’re doing now: Lucky for us, the band’s back together, and have been touring for the last several years. In fact, you can get tickets to their 2018 cruise in October right now. Outside of their music, you can catch some of the guys acting a little here and there.
Mark Wahlberg has had the most fame, starring in classics like Boogie Nights to recently huge franchises such as the Transformers series. Donnie Wahlberg, now married to Jenny McCarthy, was on the CBS hit Blue Bloods, and was the star of his own reality show for a while. Joey McIntyre was on Boston Public, a show set in a South Boston high school. Most recently, however, he had his own show on the POP Network, appropriately titled.
NKOTB at their best: I’ll admit I wasn’t a giant fan of the band back then, but I”m intrigued by them as adults. Check out their documentary, Rock This Boat, and just try not to fall in love with them all over again.