Angel Carter Conrad opens up about the untimely loss of her siblings, Leslie and Aaron Carter, in a new podcast interview.
Aaron Carter's twin sister, Angel Carter Conrad, was saddened but not surprised by her brother's 2022 death.
Angel, 36, sat down with Taylor Lautner and his wife, also named Taylor Lautner, on the couple's The Squeeze podcast to discuss her family's complex dynamic and the untimely deaths of her siblings. Her sister, Leslie Carter, died at 25 in 2012 from an overdose.
"Her death completely blindsided me. I didn't see that one coming," Angel shared. "When she died, I was already in therapy preparing for Aaron's death. I thought he was gonna die."
The "Aaron's Party" singer died years later, in 2022, due to the effects of taking alprazolam, which is a generic form of Xanax, and inhaling difluoroethane. He was 34.
"I feared it my entire 20s," she said of Aaron's death. "I knew this day was gonna come. And I think he knew it too, 'cause he just couldn't -- he could not get out of it."
Angel said that she served as "the peace maker" in the family and attempted to help Aaron with his addiction struggles over the years.
"He didn't want to hear that from me," she admitted. "I was his sister, like, 'Stay in your lane. You're my sister. I don't want to hear that from you.' Like, he needed his parents to step up."
Angel detailed her traumatic childhood, including allegations of sexual assault and years of substance abuse among family members. Her other sister, Bobbi Jean Carter, died at 41 in 2023 of "intoxication due to the combined effects of fentanyl and methamphetamine."
Angel's only surviving sibling is Nick Carter, 44, of the Backstreet Boys.
"We had no boundaries in my family," she said. "I feel lucky that I didn't allow those experiences to define me, but my siblings didn't have the same response to that and there wasn't anybody that we could go to and say, 'Hey, this is happening.'"
Aaron and Angel's father, Robert Gene Carter, died in 2017 after offering a tearful apology to his daughter.
"He called me two years before he passed and just profusely apologized, and was crying, and just, like, owned his part," Angel said on The Squeeze. "[He] was like, 'I was a bad parent.' ... 'I'm really sorry for what I did.'"
She continued, "Just hearing that from him, that was all I needed."
Angel, whose parents divorced in 2004, said that she has not had a similar conversation with her mother, Jane Carter, who is still living.
"It's a complicated relationship," Angel said of her mother, noting that she has worked as an adult to understand and establish boundaries in her life.
"I've had to set boundaries for myself with my mom in order to protect my growth and my healing, and to evolve," she explained. "So right now, my relationship with my mom is just, it doesn't exist at this moment."
She added that she is open to reconciliation if her mother "decides to turn her life around and to own her doings."
"I have so much forgiveness in my heart for all my family members because I knew what it was like growing up in that house," she said. "I have such a deep understanding now for psychology and for why these types of things happen, especially with addiction. It doesn't serve any justice to point fingers at anybody and to be like, 'You did this.' No, all we have is today and tomorrow and moving forward, and I would like to keep moving forward and to keep living my life and to live in a space where I don't hold on to the past."
Aaron's struggles were recently explored in the docuseries Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter. On top of Aaron's personal tribulations, the show also covered the multiple sexual assault allegations against Nick. The former boy band member has denied the allegations against him, even calling one claim "a factual impossibility."
Angel and Aaron's team also recently released his previously unheard single, "Recovery," and album of the same name. Proceeds from the album sales are benefiting the Kids Mental Health Foundation.
Aaron is survived by his 2-year-old son, Prince, whom the star shared with his former fiancée, Melanie Martin.
RELATED CONTENT:
