Lower than a month after the tragic loss of life of Aaron Carter, his good friend and supervisor Taylor Helgeson is responding to criticism that he did not do sufficient for the 34-year-old singer, who had struggled with addictions to medicine and alcohol for a lot of his too-short life.
“It looks as if persons are extra upset that we did not publicly expose him. Why would you try this? To someone you care about? In the event you actually wish to assist them, you discuss in non-public,” Helgeson tells Yahoo Leisure. “And Aaron had actual associates, actual household. We talked a lot in non-public. We did a number of work. You understand, 2017, we needed to take him to remedy. We did that.”
Helgeson had been associates with Carter for years, and he labored with him on his 2018 album, Love, by co-writing a few of the songs and touring with him. He stated that Carter requested him to assist handle him within the final yr.
“We all know what we tried. We all know what we did. I sleep straightforward at evening understanding I attempted my finest for my good friend till he died,” Helgeson says. “And if it was a cartoon and we may have tied him to the bottom and dragged him to the remedy middle, then we’d’ve finished that. However it’s not, it is actual life. And there is a helplessness that comes with watching someone undergo dependancy.”
He took specific problem with feedback from Melanie Martin, Carter’s on-again, off-again fiancée and the mom of their 1-year-old son, Prince. In response to feedback Helgeson had made about Carter’s demise, she accused the supervisor of getting “had a hand in his relapse.”
“This man did nothing to assist Aaron. He enabled him a lot,” she wrote. “All he did was put a wedge between Aaron and I for the get together to start out. He tried to take over and introduced him issues that ought to have NEVER been dropped at anybody. Not to mention an addict.”
Martin charged Helgeson with having “overworked” his consumer and persevering with to make use of him to receives a commission for interviews. (Yahoo doesn’t pay for interviews.)
Helgeson says there have been enablers round, however he was not one among them. He stated that when Carter requested him to handle his profession, Helgeson had insisted that he discover a extra secure dwelling life. Each he and Martin had accused one another of home violence.
“It caught me off guard to see these feedback from his ex,” Helgeson says. “This was kinda thoughts blowing.” Particularly as a result of, Helgeson says, he had insisted Carter take a while off.
Personally, Carter had voluntarily enrolled himself in outpatient rehab, in an effort to regain custody of his son, who’d reportedly been positioned with Martin’s mom on court docket order, and he was planning to reconnect with estranged relations, together with his brother Nick.
Then he missed a studio session and a present.
“And that was so in contrast to him. That was regarding. That was totally different. That was conduct we would by no means seen earlier than,” Helgeson explains. “By some means he’d at all times managed to point out up and, within the final month, two months, it modified. It modified lots.”
Helgeson noticed his good friend for the final time at a recording studio, the place they have been going to work on a sequel to Love, two days earlier than his loss of life.
“I hadn’t seen him for a number of months till I noticed him then. I may simply see by his face, how unhealthy he was doing. As an alternative of getting a recording session, we ended up… I would not name it an argument,” Helgeson says, “however we ended up having a chat. And he needed to go away the session. You understand, it wasn’t hostile. It wasn’t something like that. It was simply, you are not OK proper now.”
And that was it. Helgeson says he misses Carter very a lot, however he would not blame him for his dependancy.
He desires individuals to know that his good friend was greater than no matter they assume they know.
“He was a giver. He was an extremely beneficiant particular person. And he liked individuals. He actually liked individuals. And I believe a few of his downfalls have been… he was open and actually wished that love again that, you understand, when anyone would criticize him or make enjoyable of him on the web, he took these issues actually severely. It actually, actually affected him,’ Helgeson says. “And that is the place you’d see a few of that conduct of him kinda lashing out again, as a result of he’d be so damage. It wasn’t that he was indignant, you understand. He was a really delicate particular person, but additionally simply an extremely giving and beneficiant good friend. I imply, you could not ask for a greater good friend than Aaron.”
