Ex-boy bander Rich Cronin of LFO looks for love

Life is a funny thing. One day you’re on top of the world, the lead singer in a hot boy band with a No. 1 hit, a Hollywood girlfriend and ladies throwing themselves at you. The next, you’re looking for love on Match.com!

“Please don’t make me look any more pathetic than I already am,” joked Rich Cronin, former frontman for the boy band LFO.

Cronin & Co. had a No. 1 hit in 1999 with the catchy ditty “Summer Girls,” aka the “Abercrombie & Fitch” song. They toured with Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake’s ’N Sync. Rich was dating Hollywood hottie Jennifer Love Hewitt and the band had a then-unknown backup dancer named Kevin Federline, who, Cronin said, had such bad B.O. they made him ride in the back of the tour bus!

“There was a time when I could get any girl I wanted,” said Cronin. “But I knew it was a false reality. I never felt ‘This is what I deserve.’ I was aware I was a very lucky guy. I knew it was gonna be short-lived and I should enjoy it while I could.”

Flash-forward to 2008, Rich is back home in Kingston, LFO has been broken up since 2003 and he and his girlfriend just had a raaather ugly split.

“I’m bored around here. It’s ridiculously boring - so boring it should be illegal,” he said.

So Cronin decided to try Match.com.

“I don’t go out anymore. I don’t go to clubs or bars or do anything,” he said. “A bunch of my friends have tried it and some of them have met some cool people, so I figured I’d give it a week or two.”

Rich doesn’t try to disguise anything in his online pitch.

“I have always loved music and was fortunate enough to see (my dreams) come true by the time I was 24,” he writes. “I was the lead singer of a group called LFO and we sold over 4 million albums, toured the world, were all over MTV and any other show you can imagine, then before you knew it, we were finished.”

Cronin also describes his battle with leukemia and how that has affected his life and his recent foray into reality TV with VH1’s “Mission Man Band.”

“It was a train wreck,” he said. “After that, my credibility was lower than a septic tank.”

Now Cronin, who is writing songs for TV ads and recently penned one for the hot new boy band, the Jonas Brothers, says he’s ready to find love.

“I’m hoping to meet some nice girls,” he said. “I’m 32 years old and it’s kind of embarrassing to still be the Abercrombie & Fitch guy. I’m ready to find a girlfriend and settle down.”

Via bostonherald.com