Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter Docuseries’ Biggest Revelations

The first part of the docuseries offered Schuman, 39, a platform as she discussed her time being a member of the 2000s girl group Dream. As her star was on the rise, Schuman was told by her record label that Nick “really” wanted to speak to her.

“I was 16 and while we were filming our music video, Nick Carter contacted my team. I had a boyfriend at the time, but my label was very excited at the idea that one of the members of the Backstreet Boys was interested in one of the members of Dream,” she recalled. “They were very adamant that this is a call I should take.”

Schuman called the phone conversation with Nick “uncomfortable” because she was in a relationship at the time. She subsequently left Dream and threw herself into acting, which is where Schuman crossed paths with Nick again on the set of 2003’s The Hollow.

“I was 18 and I was single. Nick was in his early 20s and he was very playful on set,” she said. “I knew in the past that he had been attracted to me but I didn’t give it much thought. He seemed like a regular guy and I was looking forward to getting to know more about him.”

The docuseries filmed Schuman returning to the areas where she spent time with Nick. Specifically, she walked directors through the night she hung out with Nick, his friend Tony Bass and her friend Rachel. The group went to a liquor store before stopping at Nick’s apartment.

After having a drink, Nick invited Schuman to his office to listen to music. They started kissing, but the moment escalated when Nick took her to his bathroom.

“He continues to kiss me and then he puts me up on the counter. I can feel him unbuttoning my pants and I stop him and tell him, ‘I don’t want to go any further,’” Schuman claimed. “But he didn’t listen to me despite the fact that I resisted and told him no. He started to perform oral sex on me, which was horrific.”

Schuman got emotional while detailing the traumatic experience.

“I turned off the light so I didn’t have to see it, him or any of it. He kept turning it back on and telling me he wanted to look at me, which was even more humiliating and gross,” she alleged. “I don’t even know how long it went on for.”

The encounter subsequently moved from the bathroom to Nick’s bedroom. “I was completely paralyzed,” she continued. “He pulls off his pants and puts himself on the counter and says, ‘Now do it to me.’ He started to get really angry and irritated with me that I told him no. At that point, he put my hand on him.”

Schuman recalled being “scared” Nick would do “something really violent” if she didn’t reciprocate, adding, “Eventually we ended up in the bedroom. As he is kissing me, I am telling him I don’t want to have sex. I am saving myself for marriage. I told him so many times I am saving myself for my future husband. He said, ‘I could be your husband.’”

According to the former musician, Nick stopped when he saw her lack of interest.

“It was just disgusting and that is when I felt him put something inside of me. I didn’t see it. I didn’t try to see it. I asked him, ‘Nick, what is that?’ He said, ‘It is all me, baby,’” she told the cameras. “Eventually he goes, ‘You are not enjoying this, are you?’ I said, ‘No.’ And that is when he got off me.”

The docuseries noted Nick has maintained that his sexual encounter with Schuman was “consensual.” His friend Bass supported his account after being in the apartment that night as well.

Schuman candidly addressed the aftermath of the “violation,” saying, “I was in such a place of denial. Then I received a text message from Nick that read, ‘Why did you make me do that?’ That text message freaked me out. I confided in my manager about going to the police and reporting the crime. He told me, ‘[Nick] has the most powerful litigator in the country.’”

In a statement to the Fallen Idol filmmakers, Schuman’s previous manager denied that Schuman told him about the alleged assault.

Schuman chose not to do a rape kit because she couldn’t initially come to terms with what had transpired. She finished filming The Hollow with Nick and promptly changed her number. Schuman, however, ran into Nick again when she signed with Kenneth Crear.

According to Schuman, the music producer was “like family” to Nick. That paved the way for Crear to offer Schuman a collaboration with Nick that turned into a joint performance at her showcase for Sony Records.

“When the showcase happened, I remember seeing him and I froze,” she recalled. “I was very cold to him. I don’t even think I looked at him. Eventually he goes, ‘Well, clearly we don’t like each other.’ And those were the last words he said to me.”

Schuman was later told her “vocally weak” performance led to her new label dropping her.

“I was 20 years old and I knew in that moment, ‘This is it.’ I tried for a really long time, but there was this part of me that was left behind a long time ago,” she explained. “When I look back at this song now, it feels almost premeditated where it was presented like it was going to actually help me. But in reality it feels more like an alibi for him.”

Fallen Idols added that in court documents, Crear disputed Schuman’s account about what allegedly took place. Schuman was also asked about her online interactions with Nick after cutting ties in the wake of the sexual assault.

“People don’t understand and are like, ‘Well, you followed him on Twitter, you sent condolences, you liked a tweet,’” she said in reference to comments from social media trolls. “I was truly trying to find forgiveness for him and move on with my life.”

Schuman found love with Brandon Henschel, and they got married in 2006. The couple welcomed a son in 2010.

In 2017, Schuman spoke out for the first time about how Nick allegedly raped her in a blog post, which was inspired by the #MeToo movement. She claimed reports online about Nick motivated her to speak out. (RadarOnline reported at the time 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.)

In response to the claims in Fallen Idols, Nick’s team provided legal documents that can be found on the website FallenIdolsDocumentary.com, which is currently password protected. Nick’s attorney also provided Us with a letter which outlined the team’s initial witnesses, affidavits and evidence that addressed claims made in Fallen Idols. The court documents included numerous motions filed in the individual court cases in the past year.

After Schuman made the allegations in 2017, she filed a police report the following year. Schuman officially sued Nick for sexual assault and battery in April 2023 after a recent bill amended the statute of limitations for civil actions.

Nick’s lawyer Liane K. Wakayama denied Schuman’s accusations in a statement to Us Weekly at the time.

“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. 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,” the statement read. “In light of our progress in Nevada, this kind of response is at once both predictable and pathetic. But this PR stunt won’t shake Nick from his determination to hold Ms. Schuman and her coconspirators to account for the immeasurable pain and suffering their extortionate conduct has caused.”

Schuman discussed Nick’s original response to her claims in the docuseries, saying, “I was actually anticipating for him to say it never happened. But Nick proudly told the world that he had sex with me and it was consensual. And if Nick thinks that is consent, then we have a problem.”

The first part of the docuseries ended with the revelation that Nick’s brother, Aaron, reached out to Schuman to show his support.

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In 2004, Nick and Paris Hilton took their short-lived romance public. Journalist Scaachi Koul opened up about the rumors that circulated after Nick and Hilton, now 43, called it quits.

“This is a 2004 story about Paris Hilton allegedly telling her friends that her ex-boyfriend Nick had hit her. There are photos of her with a swollen lip and bruises on her arms,” Koul said as the doc showed footage of a bruised Hilton. “Nick Carter says he didn’t do it. There’s no real follow-up and generally the stories end with Nick’s perspective on it.”

Koul also questioned how Nick previously spoke about his relationship with Hilton. She quoted comments he gave in an interview, in which Nick stated, “Despite her sultry public persona, the notorious flirt was actually so uncomfortable about sex she needed drugs and alcohol to relax. She was a drunken prude who, as far as I can see, did not really like sex.”

While Hilton never accused Nick herself, he denied the allegations, telling MTV News in 2004, “If they need the media attention, let them do their thing. My family, friends and fans know that this is not my character and I would never hurt someone that I cared for or do anything like the malicious things they are claiming.”

Hilton, who never publicly addressed her injuries, told People at the time that she was “doing OK” and was “happy to be single.”

In addition to Melissa, her father, Jerome Schuman, took part in the ID special as well. Jerome detailed the backlash that Melissa faced in the years after her blog post went live. Jerome specifically named YouTuber MollyGoLightly as the person inciting the most amount of hatred toward Melissa.

“Over the course of a number of years and hundreds of videos, she literally defended Nick Carter and [defamed] my daughter,” Jerome explained as clips from MollyGoLightly’s account played on screen.

While MollyGoLightly claimed she wasn’t a Backstreet Boys fan, Jerome pointed out that her online history told a different story.

“In her YouTube videos, she slowly leaked the fact that she had inside information. Over time more and more evidence was showing up from MollyGoLightly that she was deeply entrenched with Backstreet Boys, Nick Carter and/or his camp,” Jerome claimed.

Melissa also weighed in on MollyGoLightly’s alleged connection to Nick, adding, “[MollyGoLightly] has openly stated in interviews that she had multiple sexual encounters with Nick.” (Later in the docuseries, MollyGoLightly resurfaced in videos with Aaron where she claimed to be his life coach. Aaron walked back his support for Melissa at that point in time.)

As Melissa continued to face threats on social media, her phone number and address were released. She recalled calling a suicide hotline because of how “intense” the harassment became for her.

Melissa and Jerome also mentioned a fan blog that attempted to discredit her. At the time, Nick’s Dancing With the Stars partner, Sharna Burgess, allegedly shared the link to defend him publicly.

“What I loved about Nick, too, was that he always took ownership of the things that he’d been through — the darkness in his history, the mistakes that he’s made — he wanted to be very open about them and how he felt about them,” Burgess, 38, wrote via X in December 2017.

Following his breakup with Hilton, Nick moved on with Kaya Jones, who was a past member of the Pussycat Dolls. Jones, 39, took part in Fallen Idols to explain why she believed Melissa and the other women who spoke out against Nick in the years since her own relationship with him ended.

“I saw a young woman try to speak and someone who thought he had more power and authority try to shut her up,” Jones told the cameras. “He knows what I know. He knows why I left him. So do I believe that something horrific happened to that girl? Yes, yes I do.”

Jones recalled meeting Nick in 2004 and moving in with him after just four days of dating. “It was a very fast relationship,” she said while tearing up. “I thought I was going to marry him.”

Jones made it clear that Nick was “never physically violent” with her but claimed he had a temper.

“He would punch walls. He could get very angry,” she claimed. “Nick was very good at messing with your head. He liked to control everything. So if anyone called my phone, he got really jealous. He broke my phone once like a temper tantrum like a child.”

Jones said a specific conversation with Nick ultimately resulted in their split.

“One day I was coming home from Toronto. He had his laptop on the bed and he was watching pornography and he’s showing me it. I told him to turn it off,” she recalled. “He just kept playing different versions of the same thing and it was just like, ‘I don’t want to see that.’ And he said, ‘I need you to do this for me.’ I loved him so much and I couldn’t do it.”

The docuseries noted that Jones declined to share further details about the incident.

“I have never repeated it in my life. What he asked of me was crossing the line too far for me. He became very nasty very quickly,” she added. “My heart was broken.”

Jones concluded: “Just like anyone in any relationship, there are things you know about your partner that could burn their house down.”

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The second woman who spoke out against Nick was Repp, a former friend of Nick’s sister Angel Carter. After forming a friendship with Angel, now 36, at a concert, she was invited to the Carter family compound in Florida. Repp’s mother said she spoke with Nick and Angel’s father, Bob Carter, who claimed she would be chaperoned.

Repp and others in the docuseries — including Nick’s cousin John Spaulding — recalled seeing Bob drinking alongside his kids. (Bob died at age 65 in May 2017.)

Repp said she was 15 and Nick was 23 when they interacted for the first time at the compound.

“Angel had planned to have a party on Nick’s boat. After we got out into the open water, everyone was jumping off the side of the boat. Nick had jumped immediately after me and pulled me to the back of the boat and started kissing me and touching me,” she recalled. “I had no clue what I was doing. I had never even kissed a guy.”

The encounter moved from the open water into the boat cabin. “I felt so drunk and out of my mind. He was sloppily drunk too,” Repp claimed. “Then we ended up having sex. I was just so uncomfortable and I remember thinking that it hurt.”

Repp thought Nick would address the incident before she went home.

“I wasn’t sure if he was going to apologize,” she shared. “He poured us a drink then he asked me to perform oral sex on him, which I declined multiple times. He kept at me. I eventually gave in, and we proceeded to have sex again. He never used protection, and it was very abrupt.”

Later in the docuseries, Repp discussed her bond with Aaron, who supported her after her encounters with Nick.

“Aaron and I were the same age. He knew about the incidents with Nick and he was always just really sweet,” she gushed. “We did end up having a romantic relationship but ultimately we decided it was better if we were just good friends.”

Repp returned to the Florida compound weeks later. Nick wasn’t there initially, but he later arrived and crossed paths with Repp again.

“I had realized aside from Nick and three other guys that everyone left [one night when we were on the boat]. Then Nick just picked me up and threw me in the boat cabin and shut the door. I was so drunk that I had no control over my body and he didn’t seem to care,” she recalled. “We ended up having sex. I was adamantly vocally against [it]. I remember laying on the floor of the boat cabin and I was kind of starting to feel sick.”

Repp continued: “Shortly after I saw people snickering and I found out at that moment that the skylight hatch that was above the boat cabin was open and that he allowed [his friends] to watch as he assaulted me.”

Days after the incident, Repp spoke with Aaron about her internal turmoil.

“Aaron could tell that something was wrong with me,” she told the cameras. “Aaron was very kind to me. He didn’t have a great relationship with his brother at that time because what he said were other similar events with his brother and younger girls.”

The Aftermath of Ashley Repp’s Traumatic Encounter With Nick Carter

Weeks after her 2003 trip to Florida, Repp filed a police report, but the case wasn’t prosecuted. The police report quoted Repp as saying she told Nick she was 18 and never said “no” when they had intercourse.

In a social media post at the time, Repp tweeted, “A lot of facts in the report are twisted.”.

Repp officially sued Nick in August 2023 — after taking part in the doc. Court documents noted that the plaintiff identified herself only as “A.R.” while claiming that Nick “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 listed sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress as causes for action. Nick’s lawyer denied the allegations while telling 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.”

The Lou Pearlman Insinuation

While discussing Aaron’s breakout career, several people who were interviewed for Fallen Idols brought up Pearlman. The late record producer, who was behind boy bands such as the Backstreet Boys and ‘NSync, died in 2016 while serving a 25-year prison sentence for his involvement in a massive Ponzi scheme.

Pearlman was also the subject of a Vanity Fair exposé in 2007 that included molestation and sexual harassment allegations from several former or aspiring singers. He denied the claims from jail and later told The Hollywood Reporter that his fellow inmates knew “none of that can be true.”

Koul addressed Nick and Aaron’s connection to Pearlman in Fallen Idols, saying, “But there were always whispers around Lou Pearlman that he was inappropriate with his underage talent. Nick in his memoir denied that there was nothing inappropriate between him and Lou.”

Koul brought up past comments Nick and Aaron’s mother, Jane Carter, made about Pearlman.

“Jane had done interviews in the past where she said something was amiss between Lou and her eldest son,” she added. “She never really says it with her whole chest, but if Jane thought that Lou was doing anything to her oldest son, I don’t know what she was thinking giving her youngest child to Lou.”

Nick, for his part, never accused Pearlman of inappropriate behavior. He did previously sue his way out of a contract with Pearlman, claiming he had withheld millions of dollars in earnings from the band.

Aaron defended Pearlman before his death at age 34 in November 2022.

“Lou gave us all the ability to have lives today,” Aaron said in the 2019 documentary The Boy Band Con. “Who knows where I would’ve ended up, man. … In jail?” In response to a question about the allegations against Pearlman, Aaron replied, “Shut up about that.”

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Over the years, Aaron and Nick’s close brotherly bond turned into a major falling-out. Multiple people weighed in on what they think contributed — with Jane’s name coming up the most. Family friend Jen said Jane would turn Aaron against Nick by comparing their success. While Aaron formed “a massive chip” on his shoulder, Nick “had no idea” that this was happening in the background.

Jane declined to comment when contacted by the docuseries.

Aaron Carter’s Dark Side

Aaron rose to fame in the early 2000s, serving as the opening act for the Backstreet Boys. He found his own success with singles such as “Oh, Aaron,” “Not Too Young, Not Too Old” and “That’s How I Beat Shaq.” Aaron ultimately took a 15-year hiatus from releasing music. During that break, he started to struggle with alcohol and drug addiction in addition to mental health challenges.

Aaron’s tour manager recalled a 2001 encounter when he found out his family went on vacation without him. In response, Aaron picked up a knife and put it to the side of his neck. The concerning behavior only got worse as Aaron got older.

“Aaron would tell me he would break into Bob’s safe to get Xanax. I wasn’t surprised. I would find these aerosol cans around the compound and found out that Aaron was using them to get high,” family friend Jen recalled.

Jen told Aaron’s mother about her concerns but said “nothing changed.” Aaron’s cousin recalled seeing Aaron “huffing paint” with his dad, adding, “I don’t know how Bob even got into doing that with his son.”

In 2018, Aaron started dating Lina Valentina as he attempted to get sober. Valentina said her time with Aaron was great — until he relapsed later that year.

“He was happy and healthy and then he went back on tour,” she said, adding that Aaron was thrilled to reconnect with his family at the time. “He relapsed. He bought, like, five rifles. It just got worse and worse.”

According to Valentina, Aaron’s siblings Angel and Nick were trying to get him help. However, things took a turn when Aaron spoke about “visions” he had where he thought about killing Nick and wife Lauren Kitt‘s kids. (The duo share kids Odin, born in 2016, Saoirse, born in 2019 and Pearl, born in 2021.)

“I was afraid,” Valentina said. “Me and Angel went to the police. They said if you file a restarting order, by law they have to take the guns away.”

In September 2019, Nick said Aaron’s threats caused him to seek a restraining order.

“In light of Aaron’s increasingly alarming behavior and his recent confessions that he harbors thoughts and intentions of killing my pregnant wife and unborn child, we were left with no choice but to take every measure possible to protect ourselves and our family,” he tweeted at the time. “We love our brother and truly hope he gets the proper treatment he needs before any harm comes to himself or anyone else.”

Aaron, for his part, denied the allegations and noted that he did not “intend” to see his family moving forward. During the docuseries, Valentina shut down claims that the restraining order was retaliation for Aaron supporting Melissa.

“The talks of the restraining order were around for a while,” she added. “It had nothing to do with her.”

Aaron Carter’s Attempt to Move Forward

Throughout the docuseries, Nick’s own run-ins with the law were mentioned. Nick candidly discussed his struggles with drug and alcohol abuse in his 2013 memoir, Facing the Music and Living to Talk About It.

“When he started to drink, he just couldn’t stop,” Jones recalled. “It is bad when you’re in a recording studio and your boyfriend throws up all over the studio.”

Nick’s cousin, meanwhile, added: “The alcohol played a big part in the downfall of the family.”

“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 previously told Access Hollywood about his legal issues. “I’m very aware of everything going on around me and know what I have to do to be the best that I can be.”

Family Tragedies

One year older than Aaron and Angel, Leslie Carter left her own mark on the music industry. In 2012, Leslie died at age 25 after a drug overdose.

“Jane blamed Nick for not helping more,” Nick’s cousin claimed. “Aaron took what his mom was saying to heart and it damaged their relationship.”

Nick and Aaron’s other sister, Bobbie Jean Carter, who retreated from the public eye, died in December 2023 at age 41.

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