A new documentary is pulling back the curtain on the late pop sensation Aaron Carter and his family’s challenges with mental health, addiction and loss.
“The Carters: Hurts to Love You,” streaming on Paramount+ April 15, is an intimate look at a family thrust into the spotlight by Aaron and brother Nick Carter of Backstreet Boys fame.
Home videos and archival performance footage illustrate the celebratory highs and heartbreaking lows experienced by the Carters, while Aaron’s twin sister Angel and others connected to the family recount a story of pain and love.
“The feeling of our childhood, you can’t put into one word, because it’s sadness, it’s fear, but it’s love too, it’s hope,” Angel says in the film.
Nick and Angel are the only living Carter siblings from the original five. Aaron died at 34 in 2022 in an accidental drowning in a bathtub at his California home. He had the inhalant difluoroethane and anti-anxiety medication alprazolam in his system, the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office said.
“Aaron loved being a singer, he loved going on stage, he loved performing for people,” Angel says in the film. “But I think there was a tremendous amount of pressure put on Aaron throughout his childhood.”
The Carters’ sister Leslie died at age 25 in 2012 and their other sister Bobbie Jean died at 41 in 2023, during the filming of the documentary — both of apparent drug overdoses.
Director Soleil Moon Frye had a special connection to the project, growing up as a child star herself in the 1980s sitcom “Punky Brewster.”
“I was so fortunate in growing up that I was able to have a sense of childhood,” she told CBS News. “I loved performing and being on stage, and that was such a beautiful part of my life, and within the joy and love, there was also a roller coaster of emotions and insecurities.”
While some of her childhood friends grew up, like she did, to have families and careers, others “didn’t make it through,” she said.
“So when I went on this journey over the last few years, I felt connected to Angel, to her family, to their experiences. I saw so much of myself and my friends through their journey.”
Like Nick and Angel, Frye also lost a loved one while making the documentary. One of her closest childhood friends lost his battle with addiction in June, she shared.
“This documentary was a place for me to channel so much of that grief, because I had lost one of the great loves of my life to his battle of addiction. And so I understood and had an empathy for this family so much because I had been through it with loved ones,” she said.
Amid her own heartbreak and healing, Frye said she also wanted to provide a safe, healing space for Angel and Nick as well.
“There had been so many stories about this family, so much noise, so many different people telling different perspectives — and Angel really deserved the safe space to share, to share her journey, and to provide that light,” Frye said. “I felt an incredible sense of responsibility to honor their memories and create this from a place of love and empathy and compassion.”
While most viewers can’t relate to childhood stardom, Frye hopes the universal challenges the family faces will help others struggling with these issues feel like they’re not alone.
“I hope in some way, that people will experience the documentary and be able to connect it to their lives and loved ones,” she said. “This is one of the most universal stories that has to be told right now. We are in a global crisis, mental health, addiction. These are conversations that we have to be having.”
Watching the documentary, Frye says she can see so much of her kids through young Aaron, whom she called vivacious, loving and beautiful.
“And then as all of these elements and pain come into his life, you see what happens — the unraveling and social media … the bullying … and then what ends up happening,” she said. “In that transformation, I’m watching him, but I’m watching millions of families across the world when I when I see that.”
To continue the conversation or seek support, the film concludes with resources to mental health resources, including the Kids Mental Health Foundation, which Angel and her husband Corey Conrad co-chair.
“The Carters: Hurts to Love You” streams exclusively on Paramount+ April 15. Paramount+ is owned by Paramount Global, which is also the parent company of CBS News.
