Lance Bass tried to reach out to Britney Spears

Lance Bass has revealed that he tried to reach out to his former band mate, Justin Timberlake's ex-girlfrined, Britney Spears - in the November issue of G Magazine, when Lance was asked if he's been in contact with the troubled pop star, he replied "I tried. I tried. She's my neighbor in Beverly Hills. She lives next door. I tried to get in touch with her – I wanted to be that friend to help her. I don't think she's having any of her old friends anymore."

"I felt bad for her," Bass says. "I knew she was about to go through a lot of crap. I felt the need to share something. So I sat her on my bed, and I'm like, Well, I'm gay!"

People.com reports that Bass, who would not come out of the closest publicly for another 2½ years, said "I'm more liberated and happy than I've been my whole life"), says Spears was shocked.

"I was always the Southern gentleman," he says.

In discussing another friend's reaction to his coming out, Bass says, "I used to hang out with Marc Anthony in New York and Miami. We were boys. We had a good time – before he was married. He was surprised when I came out."

Meanwhile, Bass, in his new book "“Out of Sync” revealed that he "knew" Britney and Justin would split-up - and excerpt from the book reads:

” Justin Timberlake was still dating Britney Spears, his former “sister” Mouseketeer [in 2001]. At the time, she struck me as just this adorable little teenage girl at a perennial slumber party — staying up late and having lots of fun. She showed no signs of the turmoil she would eventually encounter, maybe because she was so in love with Justin she thought it was going to last forever.

I knew it wouldn’t. Justin already had a great love in his life — his career. He wanted to be a star, and no girl, no matter how great, was going to be able to distract him from that for more than a night or two between trips to the center of the spotlight.

But as I said, she seemed like the perfect girlfriend, especially when she wore her pajamas and hung out with the boys.“