Aaron Carter’s 23-month-old son, Prince, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit over the loss of his father. PEOPLE reports that Aaron Carter’s former fiancée, Melanie Martin, filed the lawsuit against doctors and pharmacies on behalf of the pair’s toddler. In the legal documents — obtained by PEOPLE — the lawsuit claims that doctors prescribed Cater hydrocodone, oxycodone and alprazolam with “no medical justification.”
The lawsuit goes on to accuse that doctors and pharmacies — including Walgreens — were aware of Carter’s “mental health and psychiatric condition,” but still prescribed him inconsistent quantities of the aforementioned medication, which allegedly led to his death in November 2022. Martin is suing for damages. PEOPLE notes that when asked to comment, Martin declined.
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TMZ was the first to report Carter’s death, though, at the time, the local sheriff’s office confirmed that an individual had been found and pronounced dead. The authorities had not yet shared the identity of the deceased. According to Deadline, the Los Angeles County Medical-Examiner Coroner’s office confirmed Carter was pronounced dead at 11:14 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 5. The former child pop star was reportedly found unresponsive in a bathtub at his Lancaster, California home. An autopsy was conducted but Carter’s cause of death currently remains undetermined. Deadline reports that “additional tests and studies have been requested and the official cause of death will be made once the results are in.”
In April, Carter’s cause of death was released following an autopsy. TMZ reported that the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner has issued their findings, determining that before his death Carter took alprazolam — the generic of Xanax — and inhaled compressed difluoroethane, which is the propellant used in cans of compressed air. The department states that, after this, Carter became “incapacitated while in the bathtub due to the effects” and ultimately drowned.
Following Carter’s shocking death, his brother Nick Carter — of the ’90s pop boy band Backstreet Boys — took to Instagram to memorialize his younger sibling. “My heart is broken,” he wrote in the post. “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.”
Nick continued, “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. I will miss my brother more than anyone will ever know. I love you Chizz. Now you can finally have the peace you could never find here on earth….God,Please take care of my baby brother.”
