Nick Carter (musician)

Nickolas Gene "Nick" Carter (born January 28, 1980) is an American singer, songwriter, actor, dancer, record producer, author and video director. He is best known as a member of the pop group the Backstreet Boys. As of 2015, Carter has released three solo albums, Now or Never, I'm Taking Off and All American during breaks between Backstreet Boys schedules, and a collaboration with Jordan Knight titled Nick & Knight. He has made occasional television appearances and starred in his own reality shows, House of Carters and I (Heart) Nick Carter. He gained fame in the mid 1990s and early 2000s as a teen idol. He is also the older and only brother of singer Aaron Carter.

Early life
Nickolas Gene Carter was born in Jamestown, New York, where his parents, Jane Elizabeth Schneck (née Spaulding, previously Carter) and Robert Gene Carter, owned a bar called the Yankee Rebel. Several years later, the family moved to Ruskin, Florida and managed the Garden Villa Retirement Home, where they added to the family. Carter's siblings are Bobbie Jean, (born January 12, 1982), Leslie (June 6, 1986 – January 31, 2012), and twins Aaron and Angel (born December 7, 1987).

Carter's father has a daughter, Ginger Carter (born 1972), from a previous marriage. His parents divorced in 2003. His father remarried to Ginger R. Elrod (born December 5, 1974) in 2004, and had a son, Kaden Brent, in June 2005.

Early years
Carter began his acting and singing career at a young age, when his mother enrolled him in voice lessons and dance lessons in ballet and tap at Karl and DiMarco's School of Theatre and Dance when he was 10. He performed in several commercials, such as the Florida State Lottery and The Money Store. He played the lead role in the fourth grade production of Phantom of the Opera at Miles Elementary School. He also did an educational video called "Reach For The Book", a show called "The Klub" and performing at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers home games for two years. He also made an appearance in the 1990 Johnny Depp film Edward Scissorhands as a child playing on a Slip 'N Slide.

One of his dance teachers, Sandy, placed him in his first group called "Nick and the Angels". Between 1989-1993, Carter covered a various number of popular songs by other artists, including "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" and "Uptown Girl" and a few original songs that he would perform at events. These recordings ended up on an unofficial release called Before the Backstreet Boys 1989–1993 by Dynamic Discs, Inc released in October 2002. It is revealed that through several auditions, Nick met AJ McLean and Howie Dorough and they became friends.

After a troubled upbringing, he put in a winning performance on the 1992 New Original Amateur Hour at age 12. At 11 years old, Carter also auditioned for Disney's The Mickey Mouse Club and the Backstreet Boys around October 1992. He was not chosen right away to be a part of the Backstreet Boys because his mother Jane wanted him to join The Mickey Mouse Club so that he could stay in school. A week later, he was asked to join the group and was given the choice of either joining The Mickey Mouse Club with a $50,000 contract or this new music group. Nick chose to go with the group instead. The Mickey Mouse Club was cancelled a few years later. After he joined the group, he had his own personal tutor on tour.

Backstreet Boys
At only 13 years old, Carter, AJ McLean, Brian Littrell, Howie Dorough, and Kevin Richardson formed the pop group Backstreet Boys on April 20, 1993. Nick is the youngest member. The group has recorded several albums, beginning in the mid-1990s, the latest being 2013's In a World Like This. In March 2016, the group announced that they will begin an exclusive headlining residency at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas called Backstreet Boys: Larger Than Life.

Solo career
In 2002, when the Backstreet Boys expressed a strong desire to leave their management company, The Firm, Carter chose to remain with them to manage his solo career. As the group began recording their new album without him, he started working on his first solo album. Now Or Never was released on October 29, 2002, and it reached No. 17 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified gold, both in the United States and Canada. The lead single, "Help Me" achieved considerable worldwide success while the other single, "I Got You" was a minor hit in Europe. The album made the charts in many countries as well. He also launched a worldwide tour in support of the album. He was No. 9 of People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2000 and Cosmogirl magazine's "Sexiest Man in the World" in 2002, beating out such competition as actor Brad Pitt and rival pop star Justin Timberlake for the title, launching a media-hyped "rivalry" between Timberlake and Carter, culminating in an amicable 2009 meeting off camera on the set of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon where Carter defeated Timberlake in an arm wrestling match.

Nick began work on his second solo album in 2003, but the recordings were aborted when the Backstreet Boys returned to the studio. One of the tracks from the earlier recording sessions was used as the theme song to the television series House of Carters in 2006. "Let It Go" was written by Nick Carter, Matthew Gerrard, and Bridget Louise Benenate.

Carter recorded a duet with pop singer Jennifer Paige called "Beautiful Lie" in 2009. In 2010, Nick Carter started recording new songs for his second solo album, working with Rami Yacoub, Carl Falk, Toby Gad, Josh Hoge, Claude Kelly, among many others. Carter's new album titled I'm Taking Off, was released on February 2, 2011 in Japan, in Germany on June 3, 2011 and in the USA via iTunes on May 24. As of June 2011, Nick's second solo album reached No. 8 in Japan, selling over 20,000 copies.

In 2014, Carter recorded a duet album with Jordan Knight from fellow boy band, New Kids on the Block, titled Nick & Knight which debuted at #24 on the US Billboard 200 and #14 in Canada. The tour to support the album ran through September–November 2014.

On September 22, 2015, Carter released the first single from his new album, entitled "I Will Wait" on Vevo. The new CD, All American, was released on November 25, 2015. In support of the album, Carter toured in February and March 2016.

Acting career
In October 2004, Carter starred as local bully Brody in the ABC Family Halloween special, The Hollow, opposite Kevin Zegers.

Carter and his siblings starred in a reality television show, House of Carters, which premiered on October 2, 2006 on E!. The series features all five Carter siblings reuniting to live in the same house, as well as in-depth moments of their ups and downs.

He made two appearances on the TV show 8 Simple Rules, and also appeared on American Dreams. In 2007, Carter filmed the independent movie Kill Speed with Brandon Quinn, Andrew Keegan, Natalia Cigliuti, Greg Grunberg, and Reno Wilson. It was originally scheduled for release in 2008, but was released as direct-to-video movie in 2010. In 2012, he made a guest appearance on 90210. Carter made his motion picture debut in 2013, appearing in the comedy This Is the End along with the rest of the Backstreet Boys.

In 2014, Carter and his then fiancee, Lauren Kitt, starred in their own VH1 reality show, I Heart Nick Carter, which centered around the planning of their April 2014 wedding.

At Comic-Con 2015 in San Diego, Carter revealed his plans to film a movie that he had written, and would be directing and starring in. Entitled Dead 7, the film focuses on a ragtag band of gunslingers operating during a post-apocalyptic zombie plague. The film also stars Carter's wife, Lauren, and his bandmates Howie D. and AJ McLean. In addition NSYNC's Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick, O-Town's Erik-Michael Estrada, Jacob Underwood and Trevor Penick, and 98 Degrees' Jeff Timmons will also star in the movie. The movie started filming in August 2015, and will be shown on the Sci Fi channel around April 2016.

Dancing with the Stars
On August 26, 2015, it was revealed that Carter would be taking part in the 21st season of Dancing with the Stars. He was paired with professional dancer Sharna Burgess. Carter and Burgess made the finals of the show and came in second place, behind Bindi Irwin and Derek Hough.

Charity work
Carter was announced as the new United Nations Special Ambassador for the Year of the Dolphin (YoD) on May 17, 2007, representing the United Nations Environment Programme, the Convention on Migratory Species, and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. He was to record a new song and video with all proceeds going to this project, make a public service announcement and appear at local schools. Carter has stated that he has a passion for the environment and its oceans. He has worked with the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and the Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN). He also has lobbied for these causes at Capitol Hill.

Personal life
Carter proposed to his long term girlfriend, Lauren Kitt, a fitness trainer, whom he met through his brother and sister, on February 23, 2013, in the Florida Keys. They were married on April 12, 2014, in Santa Barbara, California. In 2012, Carter's sister, Leslie Carter died from a drug overdose and it is claimed by Carter's family that before her death, Leslie was suffering with depression and became addicted to prescribed medications. Leslie's death caused the family to blame Nick, and he did not attend Leslie's funeral because of an ongoing feud with his parents. On October 27, 2015, it was revealed by multiple sources that Nick and Lauren are expecting their first child together. On November 2, the couple found out live on Dancing with the Stars that they are expecting a baby boy. On April 19, 2016, Kitt gave birth to a son, Odin Reign.

On January 13, 2016, Carter was arrested in Key West, Florida and booked on misdemeanor battery after he was denied entry to a bar due to "high levels of intoxication".

Health problems
Carter has acknowledged ongoing struggles with drugs and alcohol abuse. He revealed that he started drinking when he was just two years old. He says that he became sober after being diagnosed with cardiomyopathy and realized that he could die if he did not make major lifestyle changes. The singer credits fellow Backstreet Boys member Kevin Richardson for helping him turn his life around by giving him Norman Vincent Peale's book Why Some Positive Thinkers Get Powerful Results. After reading that book he started a healthier lifestyle, saying "Working out definitely helped my self esteem, and it helped to kind of push it all aside. I just started replacing drinking and the parties... with healthier things like sports, video games."

On February 19, 2009, Carter appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to speak about his past with drugs and alcohol addictions.

In 2013, he published his first book titled Facing the Music And Living To Talk About It.

Discography

 * Now or Never (2002)
 * I'm Taking Off (2011)
 * All American (2015)

Collaborative albums

 * Nick & Knight (2014)