Aaron Carter’s Twin Sister Angel Open up About His Addiction and Death

Angel Carter is opening up about the “emotional abuse, dysfunction and addiction” of her childhood and how it led to the tragic death of her twin brother Aaron Carter. Angel, 35, shared with PEOPLE in a new interview that her parents’ alleged alcohol abuse created a toxic family dynamic only made worse when Aaron and their brother Nick Carter found fame as child stars.

Aaron’s own struggles with drugs and alcohol worsened following the 2012 overdose death of his 25-year-old sister, Leslie, as well as his dad Robert Carter’s death at 65 from an apparent heart attack in 2017. After the death of his father, which Angel saw as “the beginning of the end” for her brother, Aaron checked himself into rehab, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder. 

“Aaron was already in a bad place, but it was like a domino effect,” Angel said, referencing her twin’s final years, in which Aaron live-streamed videos of himself surrounded by guns and huffing compressed gas while detailing to fans how he thought his family was plotting to kill him. “He wanted so badly to be happy,” she continued. “He really fought to the end, but he just had too many problems to be fixed. He’d become this person who we no longer recognized. I don’t even think he recognized himself.”

Aaron Carter died on Nov. 5, 2022, at the age of 34, with his death ruled a drowning due to drug use and inhaling gas. Angel slammed their mother Jane Schneck’s decision to release photos of Aaron’s death scene to the public as a “true invasion of privacy,” noting that she hadn’t spoken to her since then. “Aaron dying was the worst possible outcome for all of us,” Angel added. “My brother deserves to be here.”

Trying to break the generational cycle, Angel has partnered with the children’s mental health organization On Our Sleeves, noting, “It’s much easier to raise a strong child than to fix a broken adult. Something positive has to come from all this. I refuse to allow Aaron to have died in vain.” She added, “I want Aaron’s legacy to be more than those final years of his life.”