Los Angeles: Aaron Carter, the American singer who rose to fame at the turn of the millennium with his hit song “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)”, died on Saturday, TMZ reported. He was 34 years old. An entertainment outlet reported that Backstreet Boy’s brother Nick Carter was found dead in his bathtub at his Lancaster, California mansion.
A police spokesman told AFP that officers responded to Carter’s home at 10:58 a.m. and found the body, but were not yet able to publicly identify the person. Carter’s manager did not immediately respond to an AFP inquiry.
Born on December 7, 1987 in Tampa, Florida, the artist began performing at the age of seven and released his debut album at the age of nine in 1997.
His sophomore effort “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)” sold three million copies in the States, catapulting him to teen status. He became a regular on Nickelodeon and Disney shows, including an appearance on the popular “Lizzie McGuire.”
Carter toured with the boy band The Backstreet Boys – his older brother is a member – as well as Britney Spears, and saw his next album, “Oh Aaron,” go platinum. As he aged, musical stardom began to fade, but Carter remained in the public eye, appearing in a number of reality shows and off-Broadway productions and releasing some new music online.
But his personal life struggles have become tabloid fodder, including apparent feuds between the five Carter siblings and family feuds over money. In 2011, it was revealed that Carter had entered a treatment facility, with the star telling fans that “the main thing in life is not to be afraid to be human”.
After vacating rehab, the artist began doing one-off shows and later a Canadian tour. In 2018, he released another album. He filed for bankruptcy in 2013 due to millions in debt, mostly tax. Carter has also faced several run-ins with the law primarily due to possession and reckless driving charges. In 2017, he began to publicly discuss his arrest and thin appearance, which fueled rumors of illness or illegal drug use. He was admitted to another treatment center for taking prescription drugs aimed at anxiety and sleep problems, reporting improvement in 2018. He told the Daily Mail earlier this year that he was vying to no longer be seen as a “train wreck”.
“I’m not what some people try to paint me as,” he told the paper. “If someone wants to call me a train wreck, I was a train that crashed and derailed many different things several times.
