All the Biggest Bombshells from “Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter”

The docuseries explores the dark side of the Carter family

• Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter covers the Carter family's strife over the years, and the dark side of their fame

• The series claims that Aaron Carter once threatened suicide at age 13 after his family went on a vacation without him

• Aaron Carter hoped to turn his life around before welcoming son Prince

In the early 2000s, Nick Carter and his younger brother Aaron Carter ruled the pop charts. Teen heartthrobs, the two appeared to be on top of the world.

But behind closed doors, family turmoil threatened to dismantle their superstardom — and the new Investigative Discovery docuseries Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter (streaming now on Max) is peeling back the curtain on the Carter family’s darker side.

The series covers the family’s strife over the years, including parents Jane Schneck and Bob Carter’s split, sister Leslie’s death in 2012, and Aaron’s death in 2022 (Bob died in 2017, while sister Bobbie Jean died last year).

Through interviews with family friends, cousins, and former employees, viewers are shown the ways in which the Carter siblings struggled with addiction, which eventually led to the deaths of Aaron, Leslie and Bobbie Jean.

The four episodes of Fallen Idols also deal with three pending sexual assault lawsuits against Nick, 44, as well as the countersuit the Backstreet Boys star filed against his accusers.

Melissa Schuman, who claims Nick raped her in his apartment in 2003, and a woman named Ashley, who says she was twice sexually assaulted by the star while on a boat in 2003, are both interviewed in the series, and both give a recollection of their allegations against Carter. Shannon Ruth, who sued Carter for sexual battery in 2022, is also interviewed.

Related: Nick Carter's Ex Kaya Jones Believes 'Something Horrific' Happened to His Rape Accuser Melissa Schuman (Exclusive)

Carter has denied all allegations against him, and in February 2023, filed a countersuit against Ruth and Schuman (Ashley sued the star in August 2023).

"These are exactly the same outrageous claims that led us to sue this gang of conspirators," Carter’s attorney Dale Hayes Jr. said in a statement to PEOPLE. "Those cases are working their way through the legal system now, and, based on both the initial court rulings and the overwhelming evidence, we have every belief that we will prevail and hold them accountable for spreading these falsehoods.”

Here are some of the biggest bombshells from Fallen Idols.

Melissa Schuman contemplated suicide due to online harassment

After Schuman first accused Nick of rape in a 2017 post on her blog, she was quickly hit with a barrage of harassment on social media, she says.

"The stuff that they would say online would go beyond just, ‘I don't believe you,’” she says. “It would be like, ‘Please go kill yourself.’”

Eventually, Schuman says her phone number and her address were released online, which frightened her.

“The harassment was so intense that it was bad for me and my family,” she says. “I mean, I called a suicide hotline. I felt so overwhelmed. And I felt so alone.”

She also reveals why she agreed to record a duet with Nick after the alleged assault

The former Dream singer says she did not want to record the duet “There for Me” with Nick after the alleged incident, but was trying to launch a solo career and needed the support from her manager Kenneth Crear, who also represented Nick and who presented the song to her.

Though she was “conflicted about it,” Schuman decided to move forward with recording the duet — and was later forced to sing the song with Nick at a showcase arranged to help her get a solo recording deal. Though she says she was “scared” seeing Nick at the showcase, she went ahead with the performance in the hopes of getting a deal. Weeks later, Crear said the label found her “vocally weak” and would not be signing her, effectively ending her music career.

"When I look back on this song now, it feels almost premeditated, where it was presented as if it was going to actually help me, but in reality it feels more like an alibi for him,” she says. “People don’t understand and are like, ‘Well, you followed him on Twitter. You sent him condolences. You liked a tweet.’ I was truly trying my best to find forgiveness for him and move on with my life.”

In a declaration filed in court in April 2023 and obtained by PEOPLE, Crear says he does not recall signing Schuman to his management company, but says he offered to help "get her a break in the industry" after she approached him.

Crear says he recalls Schuman "being excited at the opportunity of working with" Carter, and that she showed "no hesitation, stress or anxiety in her reaction."

Singer Kaya Jones says ex-boyfriend Nick wasn't violent with her — but crossed a line

Former Pussycat Dolls singer Kaya Jones says that she and Nick dated while she was still with the group, and moved in together just four days after they met.

The singer says Nick “was never physically violent” with her, but would punch walls, and was controlling and often “jealous.”

“He broke my phone once, like a temper tantrum like a child,” she alleges. “He wanted to have his way and that’s it. I just couldn’t believe how far he went.”

Jones says their relationship unraveled quickly, and that one day, she came home to find him watching pornography in bed. Though she asked him to turn it off, he allegedly told her, “I need you to do this for me.” Jones says she was unable to do what he asked, but did not elaborate further on what actually caused them to break up.

“I’ve never repeated it in my life. What he asked of me was crossing the line too far for me. He became nasty very quickly,” she says. “So that for me was like, I can’t be with this person. My heart was broken. I remember when I left him, he said, ‘You wanna hurt me, I’ll effin’ hurt you.’ Just like anyone in any relationship, there’s things you know about your partner that could burn their house down.”

Related: Nick and Aaron Carter's Friend Reveals How Mom Jane Tried to 'Divide' Her Sons After Leslie's Death: 'He Doesn't Love You'

Aaron would allegedly steal drugs from his father, and they later did drugs together

Family friend Jen says in the series that Aaron’s struggles with drug addiction started when he was young, and were seemingly the result of growing up in a broken family, in which his parents put pressure on him to be the breadwinner.

“Aaron told me he would break into Bob’s safe to get Xanax. I wasn’t surprised,” she says. “I would find those aerosol cans around the compound and I found that Aaron was using those aerosol cans to get high. I remember having a conversation with Jane about it. I don’t know what happened after that, but nothing changed. There’s not enough anxiety medicine in the world that can take away the pain that a child feels being neglected by their family.”

John Spaulding, whose father is Jane’s brother, says in the series that both Nick and Aaron were “victims of bad parenting.”

“Aaron was huffing paint with his dad. I don’t know how Bob even got into that, and doing that with his son,” he says.

Aaron threatened suicide after his family vacationed without him

When Aaron was 13, he appeared on Broadway in the Seussical musical. According to his former tour manager Mark Giovi, that meant performing six shows a week.

Giovi says that Aaron’s family promised him they’d all go on a family vacation together once the show ended, and Aaron was “really looking forward to it.”

That happiness was short-lived, though, as once the show did end, Aaron learned his family had already gone on the trip without him.

“He was so angry at his family. He then picked up a knife and put it to the side of his head and we were all like, ‘Dude what are you doing? Just put it down, put it down,’” Giovi says. “And then his bodyguard went up to him and took it. That was one of the scariest moments that I've ever had working for Aaron. Nick talked to him on the phone, but his parents didn’t come up to New York to see him after that. I can’t explain that to you.”

Schneck declined to comment on the series.

Aaron hired a private investigator to get to the bottom of intense harassment

After publicly speaking out in support of Nick’s accusers, Aaron became the target of online harassment — so much so that he hired a private investigator to dig into it.

“It got really stressful,” says his former fiancée Melanie Martin. “YouTubers were calling in restaurants trying to get us taken out of the restaurants. He was so bothered by it that he was spending all of his money on private investigators.”

Jennifer Huffman, a private investigator hired by Aaron, says in the series that the singer told her he was a “victim of harassment and he wanted some help getting it to stop.”

Huffman soon came to conclude that much of the online harassment was coming from a YouTuber named Ganval, who once broadcast a livestream with Nick’s wife Lauren.

“Aaron believed that his family was behind it,” Huffman says. “He would say his brother started this smear campaign because Aaron stood up for alleged sexual assault victims. Lauren Kitt Carter has definitely engaged online, but at no time did I ever see any indication of Nick Carter harassing Aaron. And I told Aaron that, but every single direction people were coming at him. People would tell him, Melanie’s talking to Ganval, which would cause paranoia.”

Aaron wanted to turn his life around when Prince was born

In November 2021, Aaron and Martin welcomed their first child together, a son named Prince.

“When Prince was born, Aaron was doing great. He was making videos, he would tell me that he was so tired as a child. He said, ‘I don’t want that for Prince. I want him to live a normal life,’” she says. “All he dreamed of was having a family and he was happy since the day his son was born.”

Giovi, his former tour manager, says he stayed in touch with Aaron over the years, and that the singer would call him periodically.

“He was so excited about this child,” he says. “And said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna get my life straight. I want to be a good dad. And I’m gonna change everything.’”

In his penultimate Instagram post before his death, it seemed Carter was making strides to do just that; the post features the singer doing his best to put together a car seat for his son.

“Why was this s--- so difficult lol!” he wrote. “New daddy gimme a break lol."

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