By Page Six | Created at 2026-08-10 15:40:29 | Updated at 2026-08-10 16:53:37
1 hour ago
Hilary Duff remembered her late ex-boyfriend Aaron Carter with a sweet onstage tribute.
The pop star wore a vintage T-shirt featuring the troubled former child star during her Lucky Me World Tour stop in Philadelphia on Sunday.
The shirt featured a young Carter who was early in his career, standing in jean overalls and a white-and-red shirt.
Duff and Carter started dating in 2000 when they were both 13 years old.
They were together on and off for three years, ultimately breaking up for good after an infamous love triangle with Lindsay Lohan.
“I just got a little bored, so I went and I started getting to know Lindsay, dating Lindsay,” the “I Want Candy” singer admitted on CNBC’s “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch” in 2005, adding that Duff “really got her heart broken,” which he felt “sorry” about.
After the “Lizzie McGuire” alum grew up and started a family years later, Carter continued to express regret over how he had treated her.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to better myself to get back to her,” he wrote in a since-deleted tweet in 2014. “I don’t care what ANY of you think.”
The “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)” crooner eventually moved on and got engaged to Melanie Martin in 2020. They welcomed a son named Prince in 2021.
However, the former child star — who was the younger brother of Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter — struggled with addiction and family trauma in the final years of his life.
He was found dead on November 5, 2022, in a bathtub at his California home at age 34.
“Aaron worked very hard towards the end of his life in recovery, to be a good father and to make amends with his family,” his rep told Page Six at the time.
Shortly after his death, Duff, 38, paid tribute to her ex in a sweet Instagram post.
“For Aaron- I’m deeply sorry that life was so hard for you and that you had to struggle in-front of the whole world,” she penned. “You had a charm that was absolutely effervescent … boy did my teenage self love you deeply.”
Duff concluded her message by telling Aaron to “rest easy” and “sending love” to his grieving family.
She also continued to defend Aaron after his tragic passing. In November 2022, Duff publicly slammed the publisher of the “Crush on You” singer’s posthumous memoir, which claims the former flames “lost [their] virginity to each other” when they were pre-teens.
“It’s really sad that within a week of Aaron’s death, there’s a publisher that seems to be recklessly pushing a book out to capitalize on this tragedy without taking appropriate time or care to fact check the validity of his work,” the “Younger” actress told the Daily Mail.
“To water down Aaron’s life story to what seems to be unverified click-bait for profit is disgusting,” she continued.
“In no way do I condone shedding any light on what is so obviously an uninformed, heartless, money grab.”
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