From Bad Backstreet Boy to Do-Gooder, A.J. McLean

He was all man this week when he allegedly helped chase down a jewel thief in the parking lot of the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. 

Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean was all man this week when he allegedly helped chase down a jewel thief in the parking lot of the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas.

The boy bander was trying on watches in Rocks, the hotel’s jewelry store, on Monday when a man entered the store and asked to try on several bracelets and rings.

After trying on a $40,000 diamond ring the suspect bolted for the door, reports the Las Vegas Sun

A friend of McLean’s told the paper, “The girl at the counter screamed that she could not leave the store so A.J. just shot out of there like a rocket.”

McLean and a hotel security guard tackled the man in the parking lot and recovered the stolen bling-bling.

A call to McLean’s rep was not returned and attempts to confirm the story with Sin City’s finest were unsuccessful.

It’s a triumphant footnote for McLean, who’s previously made headlines for his battles with alcoholism and depression, which are detailed in a new book co-written by his mother titled Backstreet Mom: A Mother’s Tale of Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean’s Rise To Fame, Struggle With Addiction and Ultimate Triumph.

His well-publicized crash and subsequent rehab stint contributed to a scrapped 2001 tour and were factors in delaying the group’s follow up album to 2000’s Black and Blue but the Backstreet Boys are purportedly working on a new album for early 2004. via E! that got the story from the Las Vegas Sun which also had the following in their story:

“The girl at the counter screamed that she could not leave the store, so A.J. just shot out of there like a rocket,” Vegas club personality Marklen Kennedy, a friend of McLean’s, told us Tuesday. McLean caught up to the man in the parking out, where he and a hotel security guard on a bicycle nabbed the man.

Kennedy, McLean and porn star Ron Jeremy were together late Monday night and into Tuesday at the Foundation Room (Mandalay Bay), where McLean shared his story.

McLean and Jeremy are in town to make appearances at this week’s Adult Entertainment Expo convention.

Uh, can someone tell me why A.J. is hanging out with Ron Jeremy? That’s just EWWWW. And is A.J. planning to become a porn star? or am I missing something here? Yikes.

P.S. yesterday was A.J.’s Birthday, he turned 26. Happy Birthday!

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