Nick Carter's Ups and Downs Through the Years: A Timeline (2025)

As a member of one of the only boy bands with true longevity, Nick Carter has seen it all.Despite his success with the Backstreet Boys, Carter has experienced turmoil in his personal life. In January 2002, he was arrested in Florida and charged with one misdemeanor count of resisting/opposing a law enforcement officer without violence.“Unfortunately, I didn’t learn from it,” Carter wrote of the arrest in his 2013 memoir, Facing the Music and Living to Talk About It. “I just kept compounding my problems by continuing the same unacceptable behavior and messing up."Carter has been open about his struggles with drug and alcohol abuse over the years, revealing in his book that he was caught sneaking his first drink of alcohol at just 2 years old. "My parents always laughed at that," he wrote. "I laughed too, for a while, and then I didn’t laugh at it anymore."Keep scrolling for a look back at Carter's ups and downs — including various sexual assault allegations — through the years:

As a member of one of the only boy bands with true longevity, Nick Carter has seen it all.Despite his success with the Backstreet Boys, Carter has experienced turmoil in his personal life. In January 2002, he was arrested in Florida and charged with one misdemeanor count of resisting/opposing a law enforcement officer without violence.“Unfortunately, I didn’t learn from it,” Carter wrote of the arrest in his 2013 memoir, Facing the Music and Living to Talk About It. “I just kept compounding my problems by continuing the same unacceptable behavior and messing up."Carter has been open about his struggles with drug and alcohol abuse over the years, revealing in his book that he was caught sneaking his first drink of alcohol at just 2 years old. "My parents always laughed at that," he wrote. "I laughed too, for a while, and then I didn’t laugh at it anymore."Keep scrolling for a look back at Carter's ups and downs — including various sexual assault allegations — through the years:

Carter, McLean, Dorough, Littrell and Richardson officially formed the Backstreet Boys. The group has since released nine studio albums in the United States, headlined a Las Vegas residency and hosted six cruises for their fans.

The Billboard Music Award winner released his first solo album, Now or Never. He later dropped two more solo albums — I'm Taking Off in 2011 and All American in 2015 — plus a 2014 collaborative album with New Kids on the Block vocalist Jordan Knight called Nick & Knight.

Carter was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor DUI. “Nick Carter deeply regrets the current situation,” his rep said in a statement at the time. “He is on doctor prescribed medication and was unaware of its interaction possibilities.” He later pleaded not guilty to the charges but was ordered to pay a $1,200 fine and complete a three-month alcohol treatment program.

The boy bander appeared in the reality show House of Carters with his siblings Aaron Carter, Leslie Carter, Angel Carter and Bobbie Jean Carter. The series was canceled after one season.

Nick made his big-screen debut with the other Backstreet Boys in the comedy This Is the End.

The "Everybody" crooner married Lauren Kitt in California. The couple's wedding was documented in the VH1 reality series, I Heart Nick Carter, which debuted six months after their nuptials.

Nick and partner Sharna Burgess finished in second place on season 21 of Dancing With the Stars, losing to Bindi Irwin and Derek Hough.

The "Help Me" singer was arrested in Florida and charged with misdemeanor battery. The charges were dismissed in exchange for 25 hours of community service and a payment of $298 in court fees. "For me, it’s always about learning from my mistakes and learning from things that might not necessarily be mistakes and little hiccups and things that can happen in life," Nick told Access Hollywood after the arrest. "I’m very aware of everything going on around me and know what I have to do to the best that I can be.”

Nick and his wife welcomed their first child, son Odin.

RadarOnline reported that Nick was investigated for allegedly sexually assaulting a 20-year-old fan at a house party in March 2006. No charges were filed and the case was closed in June 2006.

Nick was granted a temporary restraining order against Aaron after the "I Want Candy" singer allegedly threatened to kill Kitt. Aaron, for his part, denied the allegations at the time, saying: "I do not wish harm to anyone, especially my family."

Nick and Kitt became parents of two with the arrival of daughter Saoirse.

Melissa Schuman, formerly of the girl group Dream, claimed that Nick raped her in 2003 when he was 22 and she was 18. Nick denied the allegation at the time, saying in a statement: "Melissa never expressed to me while we were together or at any time since that anything we did was not consensual. We went on to record a song and perform together, and I was always respectful and supportive of Melissa both personally and professionally. This is the first that I am hearing about these accusations, nearly two decades later. It is contrary to my nature and everything I hold dear to intentionally cause someone discomfort or harm."

Nick finished season 4 of The Masked Singer in third place as the Crocodile.

The boy bander and his spouse welcomed their third child, daughter Pearl. The little one spent a week in the NICU after experiencing "respiratory distress" during birth. “I was seeing our newborn baby being hooked up to these machines, and she was very blue,” Nick told Us Weekly in June 2021. “They had all these capacitors in her and fluids and all these different things. We just kept asking questions like, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening? We’d like to know.’”

Nick's younger brother, Aaron, died at age 34 at his home in California. “My heart has been broken today. Even though my brother and I have had a complicated relationship, my love for him has never ever faded,” Nick wrote via Instagram at the time. “I have always held onto the hope that he would somehow, someday want to walk a healthy path and eventually find the help that he so desperately needed. 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 get a chance to finally have some peace you could never find here on earth. … God, Please take care of my baby brother.”

Shannon Ruth filed a lawsuit against Nick, claiming that he raped her in 2001 when she was 17. The singer denied the allegation through his attorney Michael Holtz. "This claim about an incident that supposedly took place more than 20 years ago is not only legally meritless but also entirely untrue," the lawyer said in a statement at the time. "Unfortunately, for several years now, Ms. Ruth has been manipulated into making false allegations about Nick — and those allegations have changed repeatedly and materially over time. No one should be fooled by a press stunt orchestrated by an opportunistic lawyer — there is nothing to this claim whatsoever, which we have no doubt the courts will quickly realize."

Nick filed a countersuit against Schuman and Ruth, claiming he is a victim of extortion and defamation. “Having met and encountered millions of fans over the course of his 34-year career, it would be impossible for Carter to definitively know if he ever actually crossed paths with Ruth,” read court documents obtained by CNN. “Carter is certain that he did not have sex with Ruth, did not grab her arm, and did not sexually assault or bully her.”

The documents further alleged that Ruth and Schuman were involved in a "five-year conspiracy" to “harass, defame and extort” him. “As our counterclaim sets out in detail, Nick has been the target of a malicious and long-running conspiracy," Holtz told Page Six in a statement. "He has never done the outrageous things of which he has been accused; in fact, he is the victim of a calculated and concerted disinformation campaign designed to destroy his reputation. He looks forward to setting out the truth, vindicating himself in court, and putting an end to the smears and attempted shakedowns for good."

If you or anyone you know has been sexually abused, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

Schuman filed a lawsuit against Carter for the sexual assault claims she previously made on her blog in 2017. According to court documents obtained by Us, Schuman claimed that during the alleged encounter Carter performed oral sex on her, forced her to do the same to him despite her protests and then forced her to have intercourse.

An attorney for Carter, Liane K. Wakayama, subsequently denied the allegations in a statement to Us.

“Melissa Schuman has been peddling this tale for many years, but her allegation was false when she first made it back in 2017 —and it still is,” the lawyer said. “A judge in Nevada recently ruled, after reviewing the extensive evidence we laid out, that there are strong grounds for Nick Carter to proceed with his lawsuit against Ms. Schuman for plotting to damage, defame and extort Nick, his associates, his friends and his family.”

An accuser identified only as “A.R.” filed a lawsuit claiming that Carter sexually assaulted her multiple times in 2003 when she was 15-years-old.

According to documents obtained by Us, the alleged incidents took place when Carter was 22 and 23. The filing claimed that Carter “knowingly provided alcohol and drugs to then-minor A.R.” and sexually assaulted her on a bus and in a bedroom on his yacht.

The lawsuit also claimed that the then-teenager reported the alleged assault to her mother at the time, who then informed law enforcement in Pennsylvania. Carter was never charged in connection to the allegations.

Carter’s lawyer, Dale Hayes Jr., subsequently denied the allegations, claiming to TMZ that authorities investigated the plaintiff’s claims two decades ago and found no grounds to move forward with charges.

The attorney further alleged that the accuser is “repeating the same false allegations in a new legal complaint [but that] doesn’t make them any more true.”

Investigation Discovery's docuseries Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter focused on the sexual assault allegations against Nick and Aaron's tragic death. The special used interviews from family members, close friends, industry professionals and the women currently suing Nick to paint a picture of how the brothers’ tumultuous upbringing played a role in their ups and downs.

Nick's team released a statement in response to the allegations, telling Us, “These are exactly the same outrageous claims that led us to sue this gang of conspirators. 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.”

In a lawsuit obtained by TMZ, Carter is accused of sexually assaulting Laura Penly on multiple occasions beginning in early 2005.

The woman claims Nick infected her with various STIs and caused her intimacy issues and other trauma. She is suing the boy band member for sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

In a statement to Us Weekly, Carter’s legal team said their client doesn’t ever recall meeting Penly or having a sexual relationship with her. They vowed to fight against the allegations.

“This is just more of the same nonsense from the gang of conspirators and their lawyers who continue to abuse the justice system to try to ruin Nick Carter,” Liane K. Wakayama and Dale Hayes Jr. said in a statement. “It's drawn from the same predictable playbook — lie in wait for decades until Mr. Carter is celebrating a professional milestone, then hide behind litigation privilege to make utterly false claims in an attempt to inflict maximum damage on Nick and his family."

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