Aaron Carter, the singer and younger brother of Backstreet Boys star Nick Carter, was found dead in his California home last week. In the second half of his life, the onetime teenage pop sensation had fallen as far as he had risen in his early years, his public and private life dominated by drug and alcohol abuse and erratic, unstable behavior. As of this writing, the cause of death for Aaron Carter, 34, remains unknown.
So many of my childhood memories are a blur, but I remember the vibrant colors of the grocery store — the way the red popped on the Trix box, the purple of GoGurt, the yellow of Lunchables. And I remember magazines, an oasis of heartthrobs: CosmoGirl!, TigerBeat (“we used to read that in the ‘70s,” my mom would always say), Jump, J-14.
Among those heartthrobs was Aaron Carter: the kid brother of Nick Carter, the best-looking Backstreet Boy. Despite his ignominious second act, Aaron Carter, so oft forgotten in the two subsequent decades, shone as brightly as any teenage icon of the late ’90s and early 2000s. Aaron was only a little bit older than I was, and therefore, to my underdeveloped mind, attainable. He was an angel in basketball shorts across the pages of J-14, just like the boys who ignored me at school. The platonic ideal of a middle school boy. A mirage of something that might have been waiting for me in another grade.
Aaron Carter was an immediate star. His self-titled debut album was released six days before his 10th birthday and went on to sell 100,000 copies. His second album, Aaron’s Party (Come Get It), featuring “That’s How I Beat Shaq” and decade-identifying megahit “I Want Candy,” sold more than 3 million copies and went triple platinum. Aaron Carter had arrived.
Sadly, his arrival was the zenith of his professional career and the beginning of the end for him personally. Though he went on to release three more albums after Aaron’s Party, including his final album, Blacklisted, released two days after his death, they never reached anywhere near the cultural or financial success. In 2006, he, along with his four siblings, starred in the short-run reality TV show House of Carters, and in 2009, Aaron Carter competed briefly in Dancing With the Stars.
And as his star waned, so did his ability to manage himself, his demons, and the repercussions of childhood stardom. His music and professional career suffered greatly due to his problems with substance abuse. Aaron Carter entered rehab briefly in 2011 but was unable to shake the personal demons that would grow to nearly overshadow his entire career. In 2012, his sister Leslie died from prescription drug overdose; as the Guardian reports, Aaron Carter claimed it was she who introduced him to “huffing” (inhaling drugs through the nose). In 2019, Nick Carter, his brother and Backstreet Boys star, filed a restraining order against Aaron after the latter had allegedly confessed thoughts of killing Nick’s wife and unborn child. Though he had recently undergone treatment at another rehabilitation center, in aid of reestablishing his relationship with his son, Prince, and Melanie Martin, the child’s mother, Aaron Carter could often be seen on Instagram throughout this year speaking to his live audience with various inhalants and pill bottles.
Before preparing this obituary, I confess that I couldn’t tell you anything meaningful about Aaron Carter. And I don’t think many millennial women could — even self-proclaimed superfans.
Aaron Carter transcended himself; he was something bigger. Did anyone love him for who he was or did they love him for the free posters of him in magazines? Did the tweens of 2000 love Aaron Carter or did they love the nascent romantic awakening that could only be inspired by a blonde-haired boy in a magazine? Did they love Aaron Carter or did they love the Aaron Carter of their imagination? The Aaron Carter whom they dreamed about, who represented the promise of something else, something more colorful than suburbia, more exciting than cul-de-sacs and grocery stores.
Aaron Carter was more than an entertainer — he was a heartthrob for the younger set. A Shaun Cassidy for the late 90s, “I Want Candy” may as well have been “Da Doo Ron Ron.” He was a symbol for every 12-year-old girl in America, a proxy for something beyond who he ever was or was ever going to be. A reverberation of ’90s boy band mania, itself a ghost of ’70s pop culture.
That’s how I’ll always remember him: not those final pathetic livestreams or the static of cheap reality shows that betrayed a drug-addled rapper with face tattoos and bottles and bottles of prescription medication. Not the shock of that final headline, “Aaron Carter dead at 34.”
But as a glossy picture under the bright lights of the grocery store, his big smile in vibrant colors.
Katherine Dee is a writer and co-host of the podcast After the Orgy. Find more of her work at defaultfriend.substack.com or on Twitter @default_friend.
