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Brian Thomas Littrell (born February 20, 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor, best known as a member of the Backstreet Boys. He is also a CCM singer and released a solo album, Welcome Home, in 2006. Brian has had five top 20 solo singles on the Christian charts in the US. He is also the father of teen country singer Baylee Littrell.
On April 10, 2015, Littrell and his cousin and bandmate Kevin Richardson were inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame.
Early life[]
Littrell was born in Lexington, Kentucky, to Jacqueline "Jackie" R. (née Fox), a dentist's secretary, and Harold Baker Littrell, Jr., an IBM employee and Navy veteran. Littrell has an older brother Harold Baker Littrell III, a singer, actor, and model, and is a cousin of fellow Backstreet Boys member Kevin Richardson (His father Harold and Richardson's mother Anne are siblings). He had a little sister, but his mom miscarried before she was born.
As a kid, he was the oldest of his peers but ultimately the smallest, and he felt uncomfortable about it. Despite that, he met his best friend, Chris Cawood, and they have been inseparable since hanging out together and playing sports, such as football, soccer, baseball, and basketball. Littrell was skilled at sports and wanted to play soccer since coming home from the hospital, but his parents wouldn't let him due to his heart condition, so he got into basketball, tennis from his aunt and played in both Little League and the Babe Ruth League when he was 5. He also makes people laugh by impersonations such as Donald Duck and Jim Carrey. Growing up in a very protective, religious Baptist family, He first started singing in the choir of Porter Memorial Baptist Church in Lexington at a young age, where he was discovered by his church choir director singing soprano at age six and was encouraged and coached, sang his first solo at age 7, did some solos for Christmas or Easter and was singing in the senior choir with his parents by the time he was ten and was voted President of the Youth Chorus by his peers one year.
He sang a song for a Christmas album when he was only eight years old and later sang in his high school choir and was selected in the State Chorus lineups for two successive years. At 16, he began performing at weddings and other events after Barry Turner, his late choir teacher in 7th grade, advised him that he could make money from singing at social events. Initially, that fame didn't impress his school friends, as he was just another one of the guys in the classroom. But He did a lot of variety of talent shows in high school. In his junior year, his talent was finally recognized when he sang a duet of a spiritual song called "Another Time, Another Place" with an ex-girlfriend, which made his classmates - and Brian himself - realize the extent of his natural talent and made him a heartthrob, like bandmates, Kevin and howie. Brian's vocals singing his part caused the female members of the crowd to scream and cheer so much that he couldn't hear himself. That experience, he says, was a total rush and left him craving more. Littrell also performed in school plays, including a part in the school production of Grease as Roger at Tates Creek High School.
At 15, Littrell aspired to become a basketball player, but at 5 feet 7 inches (170 cm), he struggled with his height, which was hard on his self-esteem, and was seldom selected for the Tates Creek Commodores. However, he was the top star player on his church team, earning him the nicknames "Seaver" and "BRok." He was on the tennis team, did some wrestling at school, as said in the documentary, and was even in a Firestone commercial, a car repair/tire chain, when he was 15. Brian and some friends sing Top 40 songs acapella in a group called Specialty in high school. Besides school, he worked at fast food chain Long John Silver's, Charter Ridge Hospital for the mentally ill and disabled people as a janitor, and at a church that he attended and organized the sanctuary as a wedding coordinator where he would also sing at other regional churches, revivals, weddings, and parties.
Due to his Christian beliefs, music remained important, and he aspired to become a music minister. However, he needed to be a high school senior to be eligible for a full scholarship at Cincinnati Bible College. He also dreamed of one day playing for the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team for the University of Kentucky, but in April 1993, as a junior at Tates Creek, Littrell’s cousin and future bandmate Kevin called him out of his American History class and informed him of an audition for a fifth member of the Backstreet Boys after a member spot opened up when Burk Parsons resigned his place in the group due to his desire to become a Christian minister, which he did over the phone at 9 pm on April 19, 1993. Littrell changed plans, flew to Orlando the next day, met the rest of the band, auditioned, and joined the group. After joining, he heads back home with Kevin for two days, packs up his truck, drives down back to Florida, and finishes high school via correspondence courses like AJ, even though Brian got to go to high school and returned for finals, graduating in 1994.
Career[]
Backstreet Boys[]
Main article: Backstreet Boys
After Kevin Richardson, his cousin, called Littrell (Littrell's father and Richardson's mother are brother and sister) to join the Backstreet Boys, Littrell flew to Orlando the next day and officially joined the group. Initially, there was no success in the United States, even though the first single had been a hit on Orlando radio stations. The band manager, Lou Pearlman, marketed the Backstreet Boys in Europe, where they became commercially successful in 1995. They became hugely popular in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the United States in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. During this time, they released four albums, Backstreet Boys, Backstreet's Back, Millennium and Black & Blue, followed by a greatest hits album, The Hits: Chapter One. After a three-year gap, they released their comeback album, Never Gone followed by Unbreakable, This Is Us, In A World Like This, "DNA" and "A Very Backstreet Christmas".
In 1997, Littrell was instrumental in bringing a lawsuit against the group's creator Lou Pearlman, claiming Pearlman had concealed information regarding the group's earnings. Bandmates McLean, Richardson, and Dorough joined the lawsuit, eventually resulting in several settlements, details of which were not disclosed.
During the band's hiatus, Littrell became committed to several other showbiz activities, primarily for charity. He joined other celebrities on a yearly NBA tour, where he plays basketball in every NBA city before a game. He has also played charity baseball games. In 2000, he was among Teen People's 25 Hottest People Under 25, tying with Justin Timberlake of the rival band NSYNC.
Christian music[]
Littrell longed to record Christian music, a genre he described as "pop positive." In 2004, Littrell signed a solo deal with Reunion Records and released the solo album Welcome Home in 2005. Littrell co-wrote six of the songs on the album, which sold over 100,000 copies in the US and reached No. 74 on the Billboard 200 charts. On the Christian album charts, Welcome Home debuted at No. 3. Four singles were released from the album – "In Christ Alone," "Wish," "Over My Head," and Welcome Home (You)," with the latter reaching No. 2 on the US Christian AC Charts. For three weeks, it was also No. 1 on Reach FM's Top 40 chart and the US R&R Christian Inspirational charts. In the summer of 2005, his solo single, "In Christ Alone," went to No. 1 on the Christian charts. Despite this change in his career, he remains a Backstreet Boys member.
Littrell won a GMA Dove Award for Inspirational Recorded Song of the Year ("In Christ Alone") in 2006 along with songwriters Don Koch and Shawn Craig, and another in 2008 for "By His Wounds" with Glory Revealed. He also won Special Event Album of the Year in 2008 for Glory Revealed, a compilation album with many other Christian artists. In 2010, Special Event Album of the Year for Glory Revealed II.
Littrell released two Christmas collections featuring his wife Leighanne and son Baylee, Brian Littrell’s Family Christmas, released on December 6, 2010, and Christmas with the Littrells, released on December 6, 2011. These albums were just EPs that contained only a few tracks.
TV and film appearances[]
Littrell appeared with the Backstreet Boys on Arthur, Sesame Street, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and he and bandmate McLean had cameos in Olive Juice, a movie starring his wife Leighanne. he even appeared in his wife's second movie, Megalodon as a rig worker. He also performed with The Backstreet Boys on Saturday Night Live in 1998 and 1999. In 2013, Littrell appeared with his bandmates in the film This Is the End. In July 2016, the Backstreet Boys performed on ABC's Greatest Hits.
Personal life[]
During the release of the band's 2015 documentary Backstreet Boys: Show 'Em What You're Made Of, Littrell shared some favorite moments of Kevin talking about Kevin's father, his uncle, who died in August 1991 from colon cancer and said during the "Never Gone" promo how both the song and album had a special meaning to the title. During both the DNA World Tour in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the band's Las Vegas kick-off on April 8th, Littrell volunteered to sing his cousin's part of "Show Me the Meaning Of Being Lonely" when Kevin became emotional twice over the loss of his mother, his dad's sister and his aunt, who had died in January 2022. During a show in Georgia on the DNA World Tour, Littrell stated that his wife lost her mother from a heart condition in June 2022 and was a matriarch to him and the family.
Relationships[]
During the Q&A for IHeartRadio at the Empire State Building, Littrell shared that he used to date a girl named Carrie, whom he ran into during the holidays in Kentucky.
When Littrell first moved to Florida two months after joining the Backstreet Boys, he met Samantha Stonebraker through her partner in the New Song ensemble and Littrell's bandmate, A.J. McLean, and started dating. McLean played Cupid, matching Littrell and Stonebraker, a Kissimmee native whose family has deep roots there. The relationship lasted four years (from 1993 to 1997) until a mutual split in ‘97, and Littrell even lived with Samantha's family for two years. She and her brother even appeared in the group's first video for We've Got It Goin' On. 1998, after their breakup, she released the book What You Want to Know: Backstreet Boys Secrets Only a Girlfriend Can Tell about their relationship and the Backstreet Boys.
Two months following the breakup of his relationship with Samantha, while on the set of the Backstreet Boys music video for their single “As Long As You Love Me” in 1997, Littrell met model and actress, Leighanne Reena Wallace who was an extra in the video. Littrell stated in J-14 magazine about this relationship that he had been out of the dating game for a while, and meeting Leighanne opened a whole new chapter for him. "I had just gotten out of a relationship with a high school sweetheart that didn't work out. I didn't really have my eyes or mind set on anybody. It was something that just happened. If I was looking, I wouldn't have been able to find her." He dated her for two years before he proposed to her on Christmas night 1999, and their engagement, along with the engagement of cousin and bandmate Kevin Richardson to Kristin Willits, was announced on MTV on February 15, 2000. They married on September 2, 2000, at Peachtree Christian Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Both are committed evangelical Christians. On November 26, 2002, they welcomed their only child and son, musician/actor Baylee Wylee Thomas Littrell, who appeared in the Broadway musical Disaster! in 2016 and is now pursuing a similar path as his father's in the entertainment industry.
As of 2024, the family lives in Alpharetta, Georgia, near Atlanta. They have been there since 2000, soon after Littrell and his wife got engaged.
Health issues[]
Littrell was born with a congenital heart condition, making him susceptible to infections. He was diagnosed with a heart murmur at six weeks old. He was hospitalized for two months at five years old due to a bacterial infection. Due to his hospitalization, Littrell was held back in school and had to repeat the first grade. In November 1997, doctors found his heart condition had caused his heart to enlarge considerably. Still, he underwent open-heart surgery on May 8, 1998 (which would be referenced by his scenes in the band's music video for "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely"). He later established the Brian Littrell Healthy Heart Club, a non-profit organization assisting children with heart conditions through medical, financial, and practical help.
In October 2009, Littrell contracted swine flu, which caused the Backstreet Boys This Is Us promotional tour to cancel.
In the 2015 documentary film Backstreet Boys: Show 'Em What You're Made Of, Littrell revealed his 2011 vocal tension dysphonia and dystonia diagnosis. He continues to work with a therapist to help improve his condition.
Religious beliefs[]
As a devout Christian, Littrell has stated he believes Christians must be open about their faith, saying, "I think as Christians we need to join hands and mount up together and lift God up and talk about our faith publicly and talk about all of the things God has done for us in our life to touch other people." At first, he didn't enjoy it, but Littrell, who has been a born-again Christian since the age of 8, has said that he attributes his success in life to God and that his faith has always been "the utmost important thing" in his life.
Heritage[]
Like his cousin, he is English (20%), Scottish, and some German, but in 2019, a DNA heritage test revealed Littrell's ancestry to be 90.1% British Isles (20.7% English and 70.1% Irish/Scottish/Welsh), plus 7.1% Finnish and 2.1% Scandinavian.
Filmography[]
| TV series & Movies | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
| 1998 | Sabrina the Teenage Witch | Himself | Episode: "Battle of the bands" |
| 1998–1999 | Saturday Night Live | Himself and Musical guest | "Julianne Moore/Backstreet Boys" (Season 23: episode 16) "Sarah Michelle Gellar/Backstreet Boys" (Season 24: episode 19) |
| 2000 | Olive Juice | Carriage Driver | |
| 2002 | Arthur | Himself | Episode: "Arthur, It's Only Rock and Roll" Guest Voice |
| 2002 | Megalodon | Rig Worker | |
| 2002 | Sesame Street | Himself | |
| 2005 | The Ellen DeGeneres Show | Himself | Musical Guest with The Backstreet Boys |
| 2012 | Late Night with Jimmy Fallon | Himself | Musical Guest with Backstreet Boys |
| 2013 | This Is the End | Himself | With the Backstreet Boys, performing "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" |
| 2014 | I Heart Nick Carter | Himself | minor |
| 2021 | Dynasty | Himself | Everybody Loves The Carringtons (Season 4, Episode 4) performing "I Want It That Way (Solo Acoustic)" |
| 2006 | 700 Club | Himself | |
Discography[]
Template:See also
Albums[]
| Year | Album details | Peak positions | Certifications (Music recording sales certification|sales threshold) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Billboard 200|US]] | Top Christian Albums|US Christian | |||
| 2006 | Welcome Home
|
74 | 3 | US sales: 100,000 |
| 2010 | Brian Littrell’s Family Christmas
|
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| 2011 | Christmas with the Littrells
|
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Singles[]
| Year | Single | Peak | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hot Christian Songs|US Christian | |||
| 2005 | "In Christ Alone" | 1 | Welcome Home |
| 2006 | "Welcome Home (You)" | 2 | |
| "Wish" | 20 | ||
| 2007 | "Over My Head" | 17 | |
| "By His Wounds" (with Mac Powell, Mark Hall (musician)|Mark Hall and Steven Curtis Chapman) | 8 | Glory Revealed |
Gallery[]
