Lance Bass and partner Lacey Schwimmer strut their stuff late last year on the reality TV show Dancing With the Stars. They placed third.

Lance Bass admitted he was gay in a 2006 cover article in People magazine.

And while he has said in recent interviews that homophobia can be a problem for him, on balance he has received more positive support than negative reaction.

"I feel way more positive aspects of it for sure than the negative," said Bass.

"But you know of course there's a lot of ignorance in the world and that happens with everyone, in everyone's lives, if it's homophobia, if it's racism, whatever, everyone has to deal with it, every day, so it's something that I don't really focus on at all. It's something that I notice and acknowledge but it's something that doesn't affect me. And I just write it off as uneducated."

So how does he deal with ignorance?

"You totally ignore it and you don't put yourself in situations where you can get into trouble."

And he says he feels the love from younger gay fans who he's helped by example.

"It's been amazing, when I did Broadway (Hairspray), every day at the stage door to have kids, 13 and 14 years old, come up to me and say, 'You know I came out to my family because of your story.' I get those stories all the time so it's just so amazing and encouraging to me that I did do something positive for all the people out there and you can just see everything changing."

DANCING WITH OTHER STARS

Lance Bass admits he was the weakest dancer of NSYNC's five boy band members which included the future and now wildly successful solo act Justin Timberlake.

So it surprised the 29-year-old Mississipi native when he placed a respectable third alongside his dance partner Lacey Schwimmer in the most recent season of Dancing With The Stars.

Particularly since the judges gave Bass and Schwimmer a hard time for their non-traditional approach that included dancing in their barefeet for one number.

"I definitely wasn't the best dancer in the world and for me to make it to the finals, I was just so happy," said Bass down the line from a tour stop in Kansas City this week before the DWTS tour pulls into the Air Canada Centre on Monday night for its only Canadian date.

"The first half we really weren't being treated very well by some of the judges, they didn't like my partner, and we were just working so hard and we just wouldn't get the remarks we wanted -- and it was really kind of depressing.

"So then we just said, 'You know what? We can't focus on this anymore. We just have to have fun.' And once we started doing that, everything changed for us."

Bass only started watching DWTS last year when his NSYNC bandmate and best friend Joey Fatone -- he's godfather to Fatone's daughter -- was a runner-up.

Now Bass says he'd like to see another NYSNC member put on his dancing shoes for the wildly popular series, which just won the People's Choice Award for reality show.

"I would love to see JC Chasez do it, I really would," said Bass who has never talked to Chasez about the possibility. "I think he would actually win the whole thing. I think in the group he was definitely the best dancer we had. I would love to see what he could do with it (but) I don't think he ever would. I think he would be too shy to do it." (Chasez is also a judge on the MTV show, America's Next Dance Crew.)

In the meantime, Bass said people still continue to throw money at an NSYNC reunion tour, but so far it's not happening.

"It's something that we get offered a lot but it's something we haven't even talked about, and all of us are doing so many different things, and especially Justin has had just such a phenomenal career, so there's no way we would stand in his way to put that on hold for any of us," Bass said.

"I couldn't imagine doing it without him."

Compared to the roadtrips of NSYNC's heyday, Bass said the DWTS tour is a lot easier.

"The difference is definitely I don't spend as much time on the stage, which is really nice and relaxing for me," said Bass. "You know with NSYNC, you do a two-hour action packed show and with this you share the stage with 20 other dancers and everyone has their moment to shine."

Not that there are any plans for a Lance Bass DWTS video or TV special.

"I don't think anyone would want to see that," he said with a laugh.

"I've been producing the last few years and it's been fun so I'll definitely be hanging up my dancing shoes after this tour and getting back to that."

In the meantime, he's staying in the best shape of his life.

"It is definitely a sport I've come to find out," said Bass.

"I lost 22 pounds doing the show and I've kept it off during this tour for sure, but it's definitely the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life, physically."

This from a guy who did Russian cosmonaut training in 2002-03.

Bass still hopes one day to go into space but he has to get sponsorship for a future mission.

"My first dream was to be an astronaut, I loved math and science and all that," he said

"Of course when you get introduced to the world as a boy band member people don't really expect that to come out of you, but yeah some of us boy band members do have other loves in our lives and some of us are actually smart.

"So it's something I've always wanted to do and something that I definitely see myself doing in the future."