Aaron Carter’s Sister Advocates for Mental Health After Dysfunctional Childhood
By Movieguide® Contributor
When the Carter family plunged into sudden fame, their family began to unravel. Now, Angel Carter Conrad, sister of Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys and solo artist Aaron Carter, is coming forward to share why she’s an advocate for children’s mental health after Aaron’s death in 2022.
Aaron was Angel’s twin and a talented musician. He had bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and was addicted to Xanax and other drugs. Angel constantly tried to help him curb his drug abuse, but he was not willing to accept help.
“He didn’t want to hear that from me. He wanted to hear that from my mom and dad,” Conrad explained on “The Squeeze” podcast with Taylor Lautner on June 26. “Like it was my Mom and Dad’s job to like step up for their kid yeah and be like, ‘Hey let me help you,’ but because they couldn’t even help them themselves, how are they going to be able to help Aaron?”
In 2022, Aaron died of drowning while using Xanax and difluoroethane.
Movieguide® reported:
The music world was rocked by the announcement of Aaron Carter’s death earlier this month. The former teen star was 34 years old.
Carter’s brother, Backstreet Boys singer Nick Carter, took to Instagram to pay tribute to Aaron.
“My heart is broken,” Nick wrote. “Even though my brother and I have had a complicated relationship, my love for him has never ever faded. I have always held on to the hope that he would somehow, someday want to walk a healthy path and eventually find the help that he so desperately needed.”
All of the Carter siblings became involved with drugs in their teens. Angel was sexually abused twice at ages 8 and 9, and Aaron also experienced sexual abuse. Their siblings Leslie and Bobbie Jean died from drug overdoses in 2012 and 2023, respectively.
“[My] earliest memories just we were just such like playful kids. You know, there’s the five of us. So lots of times, you know, spending [time] outdoors, playing war with each other or just, you know, swimming in the pool, you know, growing up in Florida. A lot of fun,” Carter explained.
“There was a lot of love there, but as I got older things really started to reveal themselves more,” she continued. “My parents were also having a lot of fun, partying a lot and exposing us to all of that drinking, you know, people in and out of the home…My dad was the nice drunk and my mom was the meaner one, and so they just fought. When they would both drink, which was all the time, yeah so that kind of really started to you know to reveal itself as I got older.”
When their mom realized that Nick had a talent for singing, she took him to auditions. Angel’s twin, Aaron, wanted to be like Nick, and his career launched when he was 9. Nick became a member of the Backstreet Boys, and the family started to be very wealthy.
“Aaron really just idolized Nick…when Nick started working and things started taking off and money started coming in and then my mom saw that, Aaron wanted to sing too and that he was talented and it was easy…Aaron went and opened up for the Backstreet Boys, his first show, and…got a record deal that night. He performed for 50,000 people at…age 9,” Conrad said.
“So I think once they started working and money started rolling in, it definitely changed the dynamic in the family…Leslie was a singer. She was really really talented, and she started getting into the music business. I believe she was probably maybe 12 or 13…she had a song on the SHREK soundtrack, the first movie…but she had she had issues going on mentally,” Conrad explained. “She was already diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and she just wasn’t getting the support from my parents because they were so you know laser-focused on the money coming in and making Nick and Aaron, you know, stars.”
Conrad, now 36, struggled with depression and anxiety in her 20s. When she was 18, Nick asked his siblings if any of them wanted to go to therapy and offered to pay for it. Angel was the only one who said yes.
“My sister, Bobbie, and Aaron were diagnosed with mental health disorders in their adulthood, but you know one thing that I’ve learned about mental health and actually diagnosing people who are addicted to drugs, they really need to be sober for at least a year before you can properly diagnose someone,” she said. “So who’s to say that what they were diagnosed with, you know, was actually was a result of their drug abuse?”
“He didn’t have the tools [to help himself]. He wasn’t capable, you know?” Conrad said, “which is why the work that I’m doing now with this organization and why like, kids mental health is so important. It really does start with our children you know, and I try to focus on that now because I can’t change the past.”
Angel partners with The Kids Mental Health Foundation, a non-profit that promotes sound mental health for children in the United States.
“When I got involved in this organization after Aaron passed away it really it started with the children in the Carter family because all of my siblings who have passed away they all three have children,” she explained. “I have a daughter, Nick has three children and I know that these children are going to grow up someday and they’re going to want to learn about their parents. They’re going to want to know about our family.”
“I know the pressure that having being related to someone in the entertainment industry,” she continued. “I know what that pressure can do to someone especially as a child because I lived through it, where there’s a period where you’re excited about it, and then there’s a period where people start using you and taking advantage of you and not there for the right reasons, and I know what that can do to someone. So for me, it was really about standing up for these children and showing them that hey, there’s someone in your family who is going to turn the narrative around.”
When it comes to creating a healthy environment for children, Conrad says, “It really starts with just creating healthy conversation with your children, opening up that door you know, so that they can come to you and talk to you about what they’re feeling. Mental health is…your feelings…and being able to like, identify those things and having a safe space you know to do that. But one of the tools I really love that the Kids Mental Health Foundation uses is our conversation cards.”
Just asking a simple question like, “Who is your favorite superhero?” helps encourage healthy relationships and development.
“It just opens the gates,” Conrad said.
On Dec. 7, Conrad remembered her shared birthday with Aaron and spread awareness about mental health on social media:
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