Aaron Carter’s Unfinished Memoir, ‘An Incomplete Story of an Incomplete Life,’ Due Out Soon
Written by djfrosty on November 9, 2022
The incomplete memoir Aaron Carter was working on at the time of his death is slated for release on Nov. 15. The result of three years of interviews by author Andy Symonds (My Father’s Son), Aaron Carter: An Incomplete Story of an Incomplete Life, will cover the troubled singer’s relationship with older brother Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, his drug use and struggles with mental health.
“Aaron was an open book during the writing process,” author Symonds said in a statement. “It’s a tragic irony that his autobiography will never include all his stories, thoughts, hopes, and dreams as he intended.” According to a release, Carter, 34, was working on the book before he was found dead at his Los Angeles home over the weekend of as-yet-unspecified causes, recording hours of interviews with Symonds in which he chronicled the intense pressures of fame that often left him physically and mentally drained.
“I remember locking myself in the bathroom of one of our hotel rooms and falling asleep in the bathtub because I needed more sleep,” he told Symonds. “My mom broke down the door, afraid I was drowning in there.” In a preview, publisher Ballast Books also shared the story of the night he spent at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, where he woke in the early morning to allegedly find the late King of Pop “crouched at the end of his bed in his underwear, apparently sleepwalking.”
“What the f–k!?’ I shouted and shook him a little to wake him. ‘Go back to your bed!,’” Carter said he told the pop icon. “He looked startled, like he was surprised to be there. He just mumbled, ‘Okay,’ then got back into his bed, and we both went back to sleep. I never asked him about it, and we never mentioned it. When I woke up in the morning, he was gone from the room.”
Other stories include Carter’s recollection of performing with Jackson at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sept. 10, 2001, and then watching the first plane hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 on his way to the airport to board Jackson’s private plane. “In the book, Aaron is honest, funny, irreverent, and self-aware with amazing recall about the stories that shaped a childhood star into a troubled but talented adult,” Ballast said in a release.
While incomplete — the final version will feature notes in the manuscript by Symonds and the publisher hinting at the direction the book was headed — the release also promises stories about how making beats “saved” Carter’s life when he was at his lowest points. “I was always suicidal, especially through those years. I never attempted suicide but never had anyone to talk to about it,” the singer told Symonds. “But I knew I loved life too much to actually do it. Hopefully I won’t do it. Having lost my own family, I want to have my own. That’s the best feeling.”
It also delves into his relationship with older brother Nick, whom Aaron refers to as his “hero from about the time I could walk. He was eight years older than me, and aside from all the standard, cool big brother stuff, he also just happened to be in the biggest boy band in the world, doing exactly what I wanted to do. And he was happy to take me under his wing from early on.”
“My heart is broken. Even though my brother and I have had a complicated relationship, my love for him has never ever faded,” Nick Carter wrote on Instagram alongside a photo gallery of childhood photos with his brother over the weekend.
“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 is the real villain here.”
According to TMZ, Carter was working on a sitcom called Group at the time of his death. The show about a collection of characters in group therapy will reportedly go forward and honor the singer by dedicated the show to his memory; Carter and the ensemble — featuring Freaks and Geeks‘ Samm Levine Bring It On Again‘s Anne Judson-Yager and Mike Starr (Dumb and Dumber) — completed work on the pilot episode a month ago and it will be shopped around to networks once post-production work is finished.