an afternoon this past February, Aaron Carter bounced around a Guitar Center in Asbury Park, N.J. with an energy somewhere between performative and manic. He was interested in everything—synthesizers, microphones, keyboards, bags to transport merchandise—and, trailed by his tour manager, Doug, who was filming him for a Periscope livestream, he moved through the store as if he were attempting to beat the world record for Fastest Time to Point at All the Items in a Guitar Center and Comment About How You Might Want Them. "I've spent over two million dollars at Guitar Center in my life," he told me at one point. "I've spent over two million dollars at Guitar Center in my life," he told several Guitar Center employees at another point.
Yes, on this Thursday in Jersey, former pop idol Aaron Carter was trying to make his presence known. And it worked. Sort of. One man asked me, "What's this, a famous guy?" Two young girls stared as he bought some fancy in-ear monitors and a merch bag. Excitedly and somewhat apologetically, an employee asked Aaron if he'd sign a t-shirt for his girlfriend. While his tour manager ran out to the van to grab a shirt, Aaron undercut the moment to tell me he'd have to charge this guy for it. "It's my business," he explained. If you know anything about Aaron's history, it's obvious why the 28-year-old would want to keep a close watch on his “business.” It didn’t fare well last time it was out of his sight.
At the height of his success, Aaron had a triple-platinum album featuring three enormous hits: “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It),” the album’s title track and first single, “I Want Candy,” and “That’s How I Beat Shaq.” It was the year 2000 and the then 13-year-old toured as the opening act for two of pop’s biggest stars, Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys, before embarking on his own tour in the summer of 2001. He had a high-profile romance with Hilary Duff before allegedly cheating on her with Lindsay Lohan—every young man’s dream at the time, I imagine. He had the success and promise of a young Justin Bieber, nearly a decade before Justin Bieber’s debut. It was a time when pop ruled, and Aaron was one of its princes.
His first full-length album, Aaron Carter, was released under the management of his parents at the some-might-say-too-young age of nine. (Lou Pearlman, who is currently serving a 25-year federal prison sentence for embezzlement, would later join his management team.) A 1997 video of Aaron performing his first single, a cover of the Jets' "Crush on You," proves what you might already suspect about Aaron at this point in his life: He is a baby. His voice is a baby's voice; his dance moves are often limited to running back and forth, simply because traveling from one end of the stage to the other on his little legs is time-consuming enough to prohibit many other moves; and he is just as cute as you'd expect a baby to be, up there on stage in enormous bright orange overalls, acting like he's a grown up. It's adorable in one way and, paying particular attention to the body rolls, unsettling in another. READ FULL STORY (via COMPLEX)
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