AJ McLean recalls helping late star Aaron Carter get treatment ahead of his accidental death at 34

AJ McLean revealed that he tried to help Aaron Carter get sober before he died, which ruled a drowning accident due to gas and drug effects.

Five months after the late pop star’s passing, at the age of 34, in November, the 45-year-old Backstreet Boys alum opened up about checking his former bandmate Nick Carter’s younger brother into rehab in 2017.

“Aaron reached out to me, asked me for help,” the father-of-two, who’s been sober for more than a year and a half, recalled in a preview for the upcoming documentary Aaron Carter: The Little Prince of Pop.

The former Dancing With the Stars contestant told fans he told Aaron, “Look, when you get on a plane, come to LA, I’ll make sure you get treatment.”

To his surprise, “Aaron showed up.”

“I was shocked, but I was happy, and he checked himself into a treatment center in Malibu,” the singer said.

Sadly, McLean said, “I talked to him a few days later, and that’s when he went off the chart.”

“I think it was maybe two weeks, so I called my friends at the treatment center and they said he checked himself,” the West Palm Beach resident continued.

Regarding his own struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, the artist said he was a “functioning addict” for nearly two decades.

“I’ve been in and out of the rooms since 2001, so I’ve been fighting my own shit for 22 years,” he said. “I almost lost my marriage, I almost lost my band, I almost lost my life.”

McLean went on to say he hasn’t relapsed 18 months since his youngest daughter told him he “didn’t smell like her dad.”

That was enough. It pretty much did for me and I’ve stayed sober ever since and I plan to stay sober. It’s everyday fare,” he said.

Earlier this month, an autopsy for Aaron confirmed that he had drowned in his bathtub after consuming Xanax and gasping at his home in Lancaster, California.

Carter’s autopsy results showed he had taken alprazolam, a generic form of Xanax, and inhaled compressed difluoroethane,” said the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner, TMZ reported.

Carter inhaled compressed difluoroethane, a propellant used in cans of compressed air, a practice commonly known as “huffing.”

Carter was “incapacitated while in the bathtub due to the effects” of the substances, officials said.

Carter’s body was found in his home on November 5, 2022. Authorities said in the report that the artist had “slipped underwater” and drowned under the influence of the substances.

Coroner officials ruled out drowning as his primary cause of death in January, TMZ reported, because medical examiners found no water in his lungs.

Melanie Martin, who was Carter’s fiancé and shared a child with him, told the outlet that the autopsy’s release did not mark closure for her.

“It claims death is by drowning, but also adds that he was wearing a t-shirt and necklace in the bathtub, which doesn’t make sense, why would he be in a bathtub with clothes on?” Martin said.

She continued, “I am still in shock and still miss Aaron every day. I don’t understand the chain of events and this report only makes us ask more questions.’

Martin previously told the outlet that she felt the singer had fallen victim to his drug abuse.

She said she turned his phone over to authorities, which included a text exchange in which Carter said he owed an unnamed person $800 for an undisclosed substance.

In the alleged exchange, according to Martin, the singer told the other party he was talking to that he no longer wanted the substance.

The other party demanded the $800 in text, Martin said, to which Carter asked if he was being threatened, which was the last message in the exchange.