Hilary Duff Breaks Silence After Aaron Carter’s Death

• Hilary Duff paid tribute to her ex Aaron Carter on Instagram.
• He was found dead at his California home on November 5.
• The couple started dating when they were just 13 years old, and they had a sporadic relationship until February.

After her ex Aaron Carter passed away on Saturday, November 5, Hilary Duff sent a touching tribute on social media.

“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,” Duff, 35, wrote via Instagram on Saturday night. “You had a charm that was absolutely effervescent … boy did my teenage self love you deeply. Sending love to your family at this time. Rest easy ♥️.”

According to TMZ and The Hollywood Reporter, a 911 call was placed from Carter’s California home on Saturday at 11 a.m. local time. The “I Want Candy” singer was discovered dead at his home, a representative subsequently confirmed to Us Weekly. He was 34.

The Florida native, who is the younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, first gained notoriety in 2000 as a teenage rapper and performer. They started dating when they were both just 13 years old. The twosome maintained an on-and-off relationship until they finally broke up in 2003. Aaron and Lindsay Lohan had several breakups, and those links frequently surfaced.

“I started dating Hilary [Duff] on my 13th birthday,” he told host CNBC back in 2005. “I was dating her for like a year-and-a-half and then I just got a little bored so I went and I started getting to know Lindsay, dating Lindsay.”

After splitting from Joel Madden in 2004, the “A Cinderella Story” actress wed Mike Comrie, a former NHL player, in 2010. She wed musician Matthew Koma in 2019 after they divorced. But over time, Aaron kept referring to the Younger alum as the “love of his life.”

In 2012, the “I’m All About You” artist spoke with Fox News about Duff’s marriage, her pregnancy news and his regret over losing her. “I’m really happy for her that she’s in a successful relationship and that she’s going to have a baby,” he said. “Sometimes I think to myself, maybe that could have been me but it is what it is.”

Two years later, Aaron took to social media to seemingly share that he still carried a torch for the “Come Clean” songstress. “I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to better myself to get back to her. I don’t care what ANY of you think,” the “Sooner or Later” singer wrote after previously retweeting a photo of Duff and captioning the post,  “hilary duff is flawless.”

Aaron declared to Entertainment Tonight in April 2014 that he would “never, ever give up on Hilary.”

In contrast, Duff responded to Aaron’s vows of love in a BuzzFeed interview that same year.

“I keep seeing that, that he keeps doing that. I don’t know how I feel. I mean, that was so long ago, and obviously, I’m still married, and I have a baby and we kind of just…” she said, before the reporter interjected, “Don’t know each other?”

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The former Disney star replied, “Yeah, don’t know each other … so … yeah.”

Luca was born to Duff and Comrie, both 42, in 2012; nevertheless, the couple finally divorced in January 2014. After dating for two years, Koma and the How I Met Your Father actor were married. The couple has two children, Banks and Mae, who were born in 2018 and 2021, respectively.

In contrast, Aaron gave birth to a son in November 2021 with his former fiancée Melanie Martin. Up until their most recent breakup in February, the twosome had a sporadic relationship.