If you’re a millennial and someone mentions the Carter family to you, one family and one family alone comes to mind: a family made famous in the ‘90s by eldest brother Nick Carter’s rise to fame as part of The Backstreet Boys and, later, younger brother Aaron’s own ascension to the spotlight as a teen pop singer.
But the family’s story, sadly, isn’t the stuff of nostalgic pop culture fairy tales. It’s a story mired in trauma and tragedy, addiction and grief, all of which are explored in ways that fans have never seen before through the new Paramount+ documentary The Carters: Hurts to Love You.
Directed by Soleil Moon Frye, the documentary is told through the lens of Angel Carter Conrad, Aaron’s twin sister (“There’s a very special bond I have with my twin,” she tells Scary Mommy. “I still feel him very deeply.”). After losing her father and three siblings — Leslie in 2012, Aaron in 2022, and Bobbie Jean in 2023 — within an 11-year period, Angel decided to turn her pain into purpose.
“Bad things are going to happen to you, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to find the good in it and that is your choice,” she tells us. “Those choices are going to help define what your future’s going to look like.”
So, shortly after Aaron’s death, she reached out to Joel Goldman, the National Director at The Kids Mental Health Foundation, about throwing a benefit concert in Aaron’s honor. She and her husband, Corey Conrad, put it together in six weeks, raising over $150,000 to go to the foundation. And her work hasn’t stopped since then. “Helping people has been my healing,” she shares.
Angel and Corey now serve as co-chairs for a number of mental health events. The couple will be honored with an award at the Don’t Mind Me Gala for their advocacy in mental health, which, in a ‘90s full-circle twist, Lance Bass will present.
Through the documentary, Angel hopes that her family’s story will shed even more light on children’s mental health and inspire parents to start early in teaching kids the importance of emotional awareness, kindness, and open communication.
When Scary Mommy had the chance to chat with Angel before the documentary’s release, she opened up about how she’s doing just that with her own six-year-old daughter, Harper, ending the cycle of generational dysfunction.
Scary Mommy: I also grew up with close family members who struggled with addiction and mental health. It’s a really hard thing to explain the inherent heartbreak that’s just part of loving someone through these things — and why you keep doing it. How do we change the public discourse surrounding these things so that people approach it with empathy, but also action?
Angel Carter Conrad: I mean, that’s a great question. I think I always try to lead with love and compassion in these kinds of situations. And what’s been helpful to me is really just educating myself about this disease and understanding that it is a family disease — it affects everybody around you.
But … how do we set boundaries for ourselves too, to not allow that into our space because it is hurtful and it can be disruptive to all of us, right? So, there is a fine line there on how to do that, but for me, I’ve just been really hyper-focusing on educating myself so that we reduce the stigma, reduce the shame around this.
We know that we’re not alone in this, that everyone knows someone who has struggled or is struggling. We’ve all been affected by this. This is an epidemic. And the more we start leaning on each other as a community and talking about it, the better off we’re all going to be.
SM: In recent years, there’s been a lot of discourse about generational curses, and your family has certainly suffered more trauma and loss than most. Before Harper, what kind of things did you do to ensure you broke out of the cycle?
ACC: The shift really happened for me when I was 18 years old, after we were finished filming House of Carters here in LA with me and my siblings. Nick sat us down in the living room at the end of the day, we were all packing our things, getting ready to leave and go off into the world. He said, ‘I want to offer you all individual therapy. And if you would like to go, I will pay for it for however long it is that you would like to go.’
It was such a defining moment for me. Not only because I took the opportunity, but it was because I looked around, and I was the only one who raised my hand — my siblings didn’t take that opportunity in the way that I did. So, I really just stuck it out in therapy. Honestly, it was like 10 years of hard therapy, going to therapy every single week, really unpacking everything that happened in our childhood, having an understanding for it, allowing myself the space to leave it behind and to not allow it to define what the future was going to look like. And understanding that, Hey, I don’t live in this space anymore. I don’t have to be scared anymore. I don’t have to worry anymore. I can move forward.
Eventually, it just got to a place where I had gone through so much therapy and really had just been living my life right for so many years that I forgot what it was like in that space, and I just became this new person. Because when you’re living in survival mode as a child, there are a lot of emotions that are brewing around you. Then you become an adult and start to understand things a little bit more on a deeper level, and it all starts making sense. It’s eye-opening in a lot of ways.
SM: Is there anything from that time that stands out as a light-bulb moment?
ACC: I said to my therapist one time, ‘I have these thoughts. I just think random things, like fear-based type thoughts.’ I remember him looking at me, and he said, ‘They’re just thoughts.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, they’re just thoughts. That’s it.’
I was carrying so much from these thoughts because I thought it was like, ‘Oh my God, am I doing something wrong from my childhood? What’s wrong with me?’ And it was so simple: They’re just thoughts. That’s always stuck with me, and I’ve never allowed my thoughts and the things that have happened to define the rest of the life that I do have to live.
SM: You say in the documentary that before you met Corey, you were waiting for your Prince Charming to save you. What was it like when you did meet him?
ACC: I was kind of the kid who always stayed in my room and just kept to myself. I remember my grandma telling me when I was little, ‘Just stay in your room and keep your room clean … your parents will notice you at some point, and everything will be fine.’ So, I just really stuck to myself. But I was always daydreaming about how someday I’m going to be a mom, someday I’m going to be married, and my life’s going to be OK. I’ve always hung on to that hope.
When I met my husband, I was 23 and had already lived so much life. But we look back now and we laugh because we’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, we were babies when we got together.’ I just remember meeting him, and he was this college boy, just a nice guy from a normal family. And it was foreign to me … it was kind of refreshing, but I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know about this guy.’
He was very persistent, and after the third date, I thought, ‘Wow, he’s really nice, and this feels so easy.’ I said to myself, ‘If I really want to evolve and I really want to break this cycle, I have got to choose someone who is better than me.’ I’m not trying to shut myself down in any way, but I know where I came from; I know what I was going through. There were things that I was still struggling with and working out through therapy at that time, and he stuck by me through everything.
SM: Was there an instance that really shifted how you saw him?
ACC: When my sister passed away, I remember telling him, ‘Don’t come to the funeral.’ I was like, ‘I’m going to go with my family; I’m going to get through this.’ Then I walked in, and he was there. He just showed up. He didn’t say anything; he was just there.
He’s just shown up for me in every way, and we have a beautiful relationship. I think that’s been instrumental in breaking this generational dysfunction — having a partner who has the same morals and values, so that we can raise our daughter well, be a united front for her, and show her what a loving marriage is like. Be those role models for her.
And listen, we’re not perfect people, but we’re trying … We’re open to learning and evolving together and talking about our parenting and showing up for our kid and implementing a conversation within the home. The biggest thing in our family is kindness. The motto of Harper’s school is ‘keep kind in mind,’ and we really follow that motto at home as well.
For many reasons, I’m so grateful for my husband.
SM: One of the things that honestly just hurt my heart so much watching this was how very clearly Aaron had big emotions, but couldn’t seem to get them out. How are you helping Harper grow to be someone who honors and expresses her emotions?
ACC: We just teach her that all emotions are normal and OK. If you’re feeling a certain way, we validate that, and we show compassion first and foremost. And, really, just listening to your kids, allowing your kids a space to talk things through, and having open dialogue. I mean, isn’t that everyone’s goal as a parent? You want your kid to talk to you.
One of the tools that we have at Kids Mental Health Foundation is our conversation cards. I keep them in my car, I keep them in the bathroom when she’s taking a bath, or they’re in her room, and sometimes we’ll do them at night. It sparks conversation, just asking your kid questions. Because you’ll ask your kid a question, and then they’ll say something and you’ll be like, ‘Oh my gosh, I had no idea.’
I think that with Aaron, he was a highly sensitive person. He felt things so deeply, and he loved his parents so much. I often think back that if my parents would have gotten the help that they needed for their addictions, maybe Aaron and my sisters would have as well, because he really modeled everything that they did. So many things I can look back on and obviously wish were different.
SM: After everything your family has experienced, if Harper came to you and wanted to be a performer or entertainer, what would your feelings be?
ACC: If she ever does that, she’s going to have to wait until after she’s 18.
She does love dance, and she loves theater, so we can kind of see already that she’s definitely got some talents there. But, really, school is the most important thing … school was not important in my home growing up, and college was never an option for me. I often look back and I’m like, ‘I probably would’ve been a lot brighter if …’ I am a bright person, but I feel like I would’ve figured out what I was going to do if school was something that was important in our home, which it just wasn’t.
In a way, I can really look back on everything that’s happened in my past and my childhood and not make those same mistakes with my kid. I can really nurture those things that, as an adult now, I wish I would’ve had. So, I don’t want to say grateful, but I have a deep appreciation for everything that’s happened. I can respect it, and again, try to take the good out of it — I can learn from the mistakes that my parents made and not repeat that cycle.
This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.