Odd problem with HTML text. HELP!

Ok, so I’ve spent over an hour reading posts on this forum, as well as over google, and I can’t find a solution to my problem. I have a simple text field with html turned on, and it refuses to actually render it as html.

I have tried loading this text:

projectsContent=<b>Projects</b>
<br/><br/>Cras velit. Fusce ipsum purus, convallis eget, congue a, interdum at,ligula. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Phasellus odio. Cras eu quam. Pellentesque non dui non nunc mattis dictum. Nulla vulputate orci rutrum diam vestibulum ullamcorper. Vivamus massa tortor, vulputate nec, convallis eget, pharetra sed, ligula. Fusce rhoncus odio ut est. Integer pharetra magna. Etiam justo odio, hendrerit a, eleifend eget, volutpat sit amet, mi. Maecenas in velit.
<br/><br/>Suspendisse libero. Donec aliquam. Donec ultrices orci nec nisi. Nam commodo molestie pede. Vivamus tempor risus et velit. Sed nonummy. Pellentesque pharetra erat sed lorem. Suspendisse potenti. Nullam lacinia consectetuer risus. Nam quam. Duis gravida, ipsum consequat tempor elementum, risus orci euismod massa, ac sodales odio purus at metus.

With this code:

on (release) {
loadText = new LoadVars();
loadText.load(“projects.txt”);
loadText.onLoad = function(success) {
if (success) {
_root.showLightbox();
_root.content_mc._visible = true;
_root.content_mc.alphaTo(100, .5);
_root.content_mc.content_txt.html = true;
_root.content_mc.content_txt.htmlText = this.projectsContent;
}
};
}

As well as the same code but putting the text in a string in the actionscript.

Both ways simply ignore the text in the B tag. If I use <strong> instead it shows the text text in the tag, but it isn’t bolded.