It’s time to separate the man from the boys - Kevin Richardson
from worldwide pop phenoms the Backstreet Boys, that is. Sure,
bandmates Nick Carter, A.J. McLean, Howie Dorough and Brian
Littrell each have their cadre of screaming teenage girls. Those
fans scooped up all the tickets to the Boys’ current 39-city tour in
one day and made their latest multiplatinum album, Millenium, the
fastest-selling record of all time. But with his laser-bright green
eyes and chiseled chin, Richardson, 28 - deemed the group’s “most
likely future male model” by The New York Times – is the one
providing a guilty pleasure for Mom too. “he has a very strong
presence; his whole aura is sexy,” says the quintet’s fashion stylist
Rachel Rosenzweig. Yet the 6’1” former captain of Lexington,
Kentucky’s Estill County High School football team calls himself
“pretty quiet. I guess I’m more the ‘internal’ type than the other
guys.” And, according to Dorough, “the most humble and modest
guy I know.” Still, immodest fans lob lingerie during concerts, not
caring that Richardson found his own sweetie (a dancer he declines
to name) seven years ago at Disneyland, where he began his
showbiz career as a Ninja Turtle. “She walked into the cafeteria,
and it was like someone turned a light on,” he says. As to his own incandescence, Richardson demurs. “Sexiness
isn’t something that’s put on,” he says. “It just naturally comes out of you.” And it’s just as natural to notice.
