Aaron Carter was an American pop and hip-hop recording artist who became a music sensation in his own right as a solo artist. Notably, he was also the younger brother of Nick Carter from The Backstreet Boys.
His first album, Aaron Carter (1997), was released when he was just nine years old, and sold over a million copies. After his second album, Aaron's Party (Come and Get It) (2000), he began appearing on Nickelodeon and touring with The Backstreet Boys. In 2001, his third album, Oh Aaron, went platinum, but after his subsequent 2002 album, Another Earthquake!, Carter took a 16-year break from recording.
During that time, Carter appeared in the Broadway musical Seussical and a role in the Off-Broadway production of The Fantastics, in addition to a number of television appearances and musical performances. Over the course of his career, Carter’s music sold 10 million albums worldwide.
In 2017, Aaron Carter came out as bi on Twitter, saying
I grew up in this entertainment industry at a very young age, and when I was around 13 years-old I started to find boys and girls attractive.
There were years that went by that I thought about it, but it wasn't until I was 17-years-old, after a few relationships with girls, I had an experience with a male that I had an attraction to who I also worked with and grew up with.[1]
Carter went on to do a series of interviews discussing his bisexuality. He later said that while he finds both men and women attractive, he saw himself “being with a woman and having kids".[2]
For all his outward success, however, Aaron Carter’s life was deeply troubled. The 2024 investigative docuseries Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter shed significant light on Aaron’s dysfunctional upbringing, abusive parents, and strained relationship with his brother Nick. Raised by an overbearing stage mother who saw Aaron only as a money-making machine and an alcoholic father prone to violent outbursts, Aaron’s childhood was one of constant neglect and escapism. In fact, his father aided his unhealthy coping mechanisms, introducing Carter to huffing paint and other chemicals to get high, a habit they reportedly engaged in together. Carter would go on to have a lifelong struggle with substance abuse.
In 2017, Nick Carter was accused of sexual assault by multiple women, which he has always denied. Aaron, however, who knew one of the alleged victims, spoke out on her behalf and against his brother, creating a lasting rift between the two that became a feud. Online Nick Carter superfans began harassing Aaron and disrupting his life to the point that he employed multiple private investigators in a vain effort to put a stop to it.
Carter tragically drowned under the influence of drugs in 2022, just two days before his sixth album, Blacklisted, was released. Carter was 34. He left behind fiancée Melanie Martin and a son, Prince, who was born in 2021.