In an era where streaming platforms increasingly mine celebrity trauma for content, “The Carters: Hurts to Love You” arrives as something different—a documentary that refuses to exploit its subjects’ pain for entertainment value. Soleil Moon Frye’s two-part Paramount+ series centers on Angel Carter Conrad, the surviving twin of Aaron Carter, who died in 2022 at just 34. Through Angel’s eyes, we witness the systematic destruction of a family that produced two of pop music’s biggest stars: Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys and his younger brother Aaron, whose solo career began when he was barely old enough to tie his shoes.
The Carter family story reads like a cautionary tale written in real time—Nick’s meteoric rise with one of the world’s biggest boy bands, Aaron’s push into stardom at age 10, and the devastating losses that followed: Leslie Carter in 2012, Aaron in 2022, and Bobbie Jean Carter in 2024. Angel emerges as both witness and survivor, carrying the weight of watching her family implode while remaining powerless to stop it.
The documentary positions her not just as narrator but as a crucial voice in conversations about how entertainment industry machinery consumes young performers whole. This is television that recognizes the difference between voyeurism and accountability, between spectacle and necessary testimony.
Intimate Architecture: Documentary as Truth-Telling Revolution
Frye’s directorial approach signals a shift in how streaming documentaries handle celebrity subjects—particularly when those subjects are dead or defenseless. Rather than sensationalizing tragedy, the series employs what might be called “radical restraint.” Home video footage becomes archaeological evidence, juxtaposing moments of genuine childhood joy against the systematic erosion of family bonds. The contrast is devastating: children playing in oversized white Guess T-shirts and Silver Tab jeans, unaware that their innocence is being monetized in real time.
The series’ structural choice to privilege Angel’s perspective over traditional talking-head interviews represents a broader evolution in documentary storytelling. Her phone conversations with Nick, captured candidly rather than staged for cameras, create intimacy that manufactured interview settings cannot achieve. These moments reveal vulnerability that celebrity subjects rarely display—Nick’s visible exhaustion from carrying decades of trauma, Angel’s measured but unmistakable anger at systems that failed her family repeatedly.
Frye’s handling of absent voices—particularly parents Bob and Jane Carter—avoids the trap of creating convenient villains. Instead, the documentary suggests that dysfunction operates systemically, passed down through generations like genetic inheritance.
The inclusion of supporting figures like former tour manager Lori Knight provides professional context without absolving anyone of responsibility. This approach reflects streaming platforms’ growing sophistication in handling sensitive subjects, recognizing that audiences no longer accept simple narratives of good and evil.
The Industrial Complex of Childhood: Fame as Family Destroyer
The documentary exposes what might be called the “industrial complex of childhood stardom”—a system where children’s emotional development becomes subordinate to revenue generation. Bob and Jane Carter’s transformation from parents to managers represents a familiar pattern in entertainment: the moment when family relationships become transactional, when love gets commodified through performance metrics and chart positions.
Aaron’s story becomes particularly haunting when viewed through this lens. Beginning his career at 10, he never experienced childhood as anything other than work. The documentary reveals how this early professionalization created a template where self-worth became inextricably linked to commercial success. His parents’ decision to spend money he earned before reaching legal adulthood represents more than financial exploitation—it demonstrates how completely they’d reframed their children as business assets rather than dependents requiring protection.
Angel’s experience as the “non-performing twin” illuminates another dimension of this dysfunction. While Aaron’s talent made him valuable to the family’s economic engine, Angel became invisible, experiencing neglect that was both emotional and practical. Her story reflects broader questions about how families reorganize themselves around a single member’s commercial potential, often sacrificing other children’s needs entirely.
The series reveals how mental health issues and substance abuse operated as both symptom and accelerant of family breakdown. Nick’s early success created unrealistic expectations for his siblings, while the parents’ own untreated trauma manifested in alcohol abuse and emotional unavailability. The documentary shows how fame functions as both mask and magnifier—hiding dysfunction from public view while intensifying pressure within family systems already operating under extreme stress.
These patterns speak to larger failures in how society protects child performers. The documentary implicitly critiques an entertainment industry that profits from young talent while providing minimal safeguards for their psychological well-being. The Carter family’s story becomes a case study in how quickly protective structures can collapse when financial incentives align against children’s interests.
Breaking Cycles: Documentary as Social Intervention
“The Carters: Hurts to Love You” positions itself within streaming television’s expanding role as social intervention platform. Angel’s decision to speak publicly about her family’s dysfunction represents more than personal catharsis—it’s an attempt to create language for experiences that trauma survivors often struggle to articulate. Her transformation from silent observer to public advocate reflects documentary television’s power to amplify marginalized voices within celebrity narratives.
The series’ treatment of Leslie and Bobbie Jean Carter, while limited, raises important questions about whose stories get told and how. Their abbreviated presence in the documentary reflects both the constraints of available material and the challenge of representing people who lived largely outside public attention. This limitation highlights streaming platforms’ ongoing struggle to balance comprehensive storytelling with respect for privacy and family wishes.
Nick and Angel’s commitment to raising their own children differently signals the documentary’s investment in forward-looking change rather than backward-looking blame. Their recognition that trauma patterns can be interrupted through conscious choice offers viewers something beyond voyeuristic consumption of celebrity pain. This approach aligns with streaming television’s growing awareness that audiences seek content that provides pathways for healing and growth, not just entertainment.
The documentary’s contribution to conversations about child protection in entertainment cannot be measured solely through immediate policy changes. Instead, it functions as cultural documentation, creating a record of systematic failures that future generations can reference when building better protective structures. In this sense, the series operates as both memorial and manifesto—honoring the Carter siblings who died while advocating for children currently within entertainment industry systems.
“The Carters: Hurts to Love You” is a two-part documentary series that premiered on Paramount+ on April 15, 2025. The series gives an inside look at the lives of the Carter family, focusing on the pressures of fame and the struggles with mental health and addiction that have affected them. For viewers in Australia, the documentary will be available to stream on Stan starting July 2, 2025.
Full Credits
Director: Soleil Moon Frye
Executive Producers: Cynthia Childs, Soleil Moon Frye, James Goldston, Aysu Saliba, Cara Tortora, Terence Wrong, Susan Zirinsky, Steven Baker
Cast: Angel Carter Conrad, Nick Carter, Melissa Joan Hart, Scout Willis, Aaron Carter
The Review
The Carters: Hurts to Love You
"The Carters: Hurts to Love You" succeeds as both intimate family portrait and systemic critique of entertainment industry practices. Frye's restrained direction allows the Carter family's story to speak without exploitation, while Angel's courage in breaking family silence creates space for broader conversations about childhood trauma and celebrity culture. Though limited coverage of Leslie and Bobbie Jean feels incomplete, the documentary's commitment to healing over sensationalism makes it essential viewing for understanding fame's human cost.
PROS
- Authentic, non-exploitative storytelling approach
- Angel's powerful testimony breaks important silences
- Effective use of archival footage and intimate conversations
- Addresses systemic issues beyond one family's tragedy
CONS
- Limited coverage of Leslie and Bobbie Jean Carter's stories
- Some absent parental perspectives leave gaps
- Occasionally repetitive use of same home video clips
