A band with an album to promote occasionally must suffer through nonmusic questions, often of the dating or dissing variety.

But for the Backstreet Boys, currently touting their latest album, Unbreakable, the current round of interviews is a decidedly more uncomfortable affair.

That's primarily because Lou Pearlman, the boy band impresario credited with creating the hugely successful group, is now alleged to have asked for more than just dedication and hard work from his proteges.

A story in this month's Vanity Fair depicts Pearlman--in jail awaiting trial on a litany of fraud and embezzlement charges--as a pedophile who preyed on members of his boy bands, including Backstreet. The group's A.J. McLean and Nick Carter spoke to MTV News about the allegations, although they carefully steered away from specifics, including the article's assertion that Carter was the recipient of some of Pearlman's advances.

"One of the radio stations asked us about this, and Brian and I started singing Justin [Timberlake]'s 'What Goes Around ... Comes Around," McLean told MTV. "I mean, you can't run from these things forever. You know if you're doing something bad from the very get, it's gonna come back around and bite you in the ass. There's no way around it."

Pearlman is accused of bilking investors nationwide of millions of dollars, and allegedly fled the country and eluded law enforcement officials until he was caught in Indonesia in June and living under a fake name. Although not part of the charges he faces, Pearlman has previously been accused of signing his boy band groups, including 'NSYNC and Backstreet, to lopsided deals over which they later sued Pearlman.

"I mean we thankfully got out of that whole situation when we did, and you know we don't wish bad upon anybody, but karma's karma," McLean told MTV.

Neither Carter nor McLean addressed the specific allegation made in the Vanity Fair article about Pearlman and Carter. But Carter did express frustration that he had to deal with such a subject at all.

"There's a lot of people who maybe were involved in our stuff in the past who want to take an opportunity maybe because they are a little bitter, you know, maybe because of where they are right now," Carter said. "And they tend to, like, throw us under the bus, you know what I mean? Because of where we are right now. I mean, I'm not naming anybody but ... any attack on any one of us in this group is an attack on the whole entire group."