Hours after taking to social media to memorialize his sibling, the boyband singer broke down in tears while performing at London’s O2 on Sunday night.
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The Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter publicly reacted to the death of his younger brother, Aaron Carter, 34, after the former child star was pronounced dead at the scene in a bathtub on Saturday.
“My heart is broken,” Carter wrote on Twitter, commemorating the singer-turned-rapper. “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.”
“Sometimes we want to blame someone or something for a loss, but the truth is that addiction and mental illness are the real villains here,” Carter continued on Sunday. “I will miss my brother more than anyone will ever know. I love you baby brother.”
The brothers had an estranged relationship that became explosive in 2019 when Aaron took the side of Nick’s accusers after a series of sexual assault allegations were levied against the boyband star. In a string of tweets, the younger Carter claimed the pair had not spoken in years, and that his older brother had gotten a restraining order against him in retaliation for alleging that the elder Carter had a history of violence against women.
In response, Nick Carter claimed that his younger brother confessed to harboring “thoughts and intentions of killing my pregnant wife and unborn child.”
In an Instagram post Sunday, Carter hoped that his younger brother would now have “a chance to finally have some peace you could never find here on earth.”
Hours after his posts, Carter took to the stage at London’s O2 with the other members of the Backstreet Boys for a previously scheduled show as part of their DNA World Tour. Carter became visibly emotional during the performance, footage of the set shows.
As Carter’s bandmates comforted him, Kevin Richardson could be heard telling the arena audience, “Tonight we’ve got heavy hearts, because we lost one of our family members yesterday.”
Aaron Carter was the second in his family to succumb to drug use, following his sister, singer Leslie Carter, who died in 2012 from an overdose.
Aaron Carter’s autopsy report has not yet been published.
