misha_bsb ([info]misha_bsb) wrote,
@ 2009-02-04 19:54:00
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Nick Carter: 'I don't want to die' (People Magazine, issue date Feb 16, 2009
Nick Carter 'I don't want to die'

Haunted by his troubled childhood, Backstreet Boy Nick Carter entered a harrowing world of alcohol and drug abuse. But after being diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition eight months ago, the singer has gotten himself sober and healthy; today, he says, life is 'awesome'

By Marisa Laudadio
Photographs by Andrew Southam

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Page 65 (complete)
[info]misha_bsb
2009-02-05 04:23 am UTC (link)
During the decade boy-band heart-throb Nick Carter spent abusing drugs and alcohol - typically downing half a bottle of hard liquor a night, often followed by what he calls a "bump" of cocaine - there wasn't anythingh that could make him stop. Not a 2002 arrest after a Florida bar brawl or a 2005 arrest for DUI. Not his ballooning weight, which shot up to 224 lbs in 2006, or the self-loathing he felt after a May 2008 trip to Russia, when he competed with locals to see who could down the most Sambuca. "There were things happening, proving that maybe what I was doing was out of control, all sorts of crazy stuff," Carter admits. "But every time those red flags would come up, I'd appease people in my inner circle and make them think everything was alright."

Even when it became clear that everything was most definitely not all right - last spring, during the European leg of the Backstreet Boys' tour, he began experiencing a mild discomfort in his chest - Carter would not stop partying. "I was thinking, 'Something is physically wrong with me,'" says the 29-year-old singer, who in June went to Ft. Lauderdale cardiologist Richard Polakoff for two days of medical testing. But the night before his results were due back, "I went out and I just went nuts," he recalls, staring out at the Pacific Ocean through the windows of his high-rise condo in Santa Monica. "I drank so much and did a bunch of blow. I felt like I was trying to kill myself - because I didn't want to get the results."

Carter had good reason to be afraid: The years of abusing his body had left a buildup of toxins in his heart, weakening the muscle so that had difficulty pumping blood. This condition, known as cardiomyopathy (see box), is the same one that led to the death of singer Andy Gibb and killed actor Chris Penn - and Carter learned it could kill him as well if he didn't get clean and sober. "My doctor said, 'You need to change your lifestyle. I don't want you to end up like that,'" Carter says. "I was like, 'I don't want to end up like that either.'"

In the eight months since his diagnosis, Carter has indeed taken dramatic steps to turn his life around. He has lost more than 30 lbs. (see box) and - with the exception of a few slips early on - stopped drinking and doing drugs. "I don't want to die," he says. "I don't want to be that person people read about and think, 'That's sad that he couldn't stop it and killed himself.'"

Yet Carter admits that committing to a clean lifestyle remains a daily challenge, perhaps because his self-destructive behavior was a lifetime in the making. The oldest of five children born to Robert, 56, and Jane, 49, Carter says alcohol was always around when he was growing up in Jamestown, N.Y., where his family owned a bar called the Rebel Yell. "If you want me to be honest, I had my first drink when I was 2 years old," says Carter.

Easy access to alcohol was only part of the story. As revealed on the short-lived E! reality show "House of Carters," family life for Carter and his siblings - Bobbie Jean, 27, Leslie, 22, and twins Aaron and Angel, 21 - was tumultous. "There was a ton of fighting between my mother and father," he says. "The kids would be thrown into the middle, to choose sides." The dysfunction only intensified after Carter found success as "the cute one" in the Backstreet Boys, which he joined at age 12. "Fame is a lot of pressure, especially when you're responsible for your entire family," he says. "Financially, emotionally - everything."

And while he was out touring the world, his home life was falling apart. Not only his parents' marriage breaking down, but rumors - never proven - had started to surface that the Backstreet Boys' former manager Lou Pearlman was behaving inappropriately with some of his boy-band charges. (In 2007 Jane Carter told 'Vanity Fair' that "certain things happened and it almost destroyed our family" but stopped short of specifying how it affected Carter, who did not want to discuss Pearlman with PEOPLE.)

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Re: Page 65 (complete)
[info]beckyo
2009-02-05 04:26 am UTC (link)
I had seen the diagnosis, but not the rest of it. Jesus, Nicky.

And Lou? Don't even get me started on him. Or Jane.

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Page 66, and a liltle of page 68 (page 67 is a full-page advertisement)
[info]misha_bsb
2009-02-05 04:44 am UTC (link)
By 2003 Carter's parents hd split, and a tug-of-war over Aaron, a teen pop star, ensued; at one point Aaron considered filing for emancipation. He also accused his mother, who comanaged him for 10 years, of stealing $100,000 from him. (She denied the charge and they settled the dispute a month later.) "We tried to make is seem like there weren't any problems," says Aaron, "and then when there was some sort of argument or fight, it really showed."

Looking back, Carter refuses to point fingers. "It was never a one-way street. You can't just blame one person," he says. Yet the turmoil led to Carter being estranged from his parents and siblings at various points throughout the years. To cope, he drank himself into a stupor; he also took up marijuana inhis late teens before entering what he calls "my Ecstacy phase," eventually moving on to abuse pills, particularly the prescription painkiller Vicodin. Then, in his mid-20s, friends on the Hollywood scene party scene introduced him to cocaine, which he would take to get through all-night clubbing. "I would get tired because we were partying so much, so I would do a bump [of cocaine] just to wake myself up," he says. "I would be that person who would stay at these clubs till the lights come on and they're playing, "Don't Stop Believin'." People are looking a me going, 'Is that Nick Carter?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, it's me gacked up.'"

Yet in a way, his life had never been better. In 2002 he released a solo album that went gold; a year later he embarked on a high-profile relationship with Paris Hilton. But that relationship unraveled seven months later amid accusations that Carter had hit Hilton (a charge he vehemently denied to PEOPLE at the time), and by the time the Backstreet Boys reunited in 2004, it was clear, say his bandmates, that Carter was struggling. "Sometimes the last people you want to take advice from are the people closest to you," says bandmate Howie Dorough, 35. "Nick was on a journey to find himself. When he was scolded, rather than motivating him, he curled up and crawled into a darker hole."

Carter's drinking wasn't the only thing out of control: Although a teenage diet of fast food and candy meant Carter had always been "a little bit overweight," in 2006 he hit an all-time high of 224 lbs., a direct result of his partying. "Healthwise, I was feeling gross, getting bigger," says the 6-ft Carter. He recalls a particularyly raucus night of partying in Hollywood that fall, during which he and a friend "did a bunch of blow" before deciding to take a bus back to his place. "We were walking past a school the next morning, and we look like zombies, and I just remembered these kids looking at me, and I felt so disgusted."

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Re: Page 66, and a liltle of page 68 (page 67 is a full-page advertisement)
[info]socialmaker
2009-07-07 02:00 pm UTC (link)
224 lbs is a lot... I know this because my brother is around that number and I know how he feels and how many problems he has... going over 200 is a real pain you know...
I started a "eat healthy" blog using a webhosting package from webfusion and things are working really well.

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page 68 (conclusion of article)
[info]misha_bsb
2009-02-05 05:02 am UTC (link)
The episode prompted Carter to seek help, enrolling in an outpatient treatment program. He then stayed sober for six months before relapsing; over the next 18 months, Carter found himself trapped in a wicked pattern where he would quit drinking cold turkey for a few months, followed by a few months of "hardcore drinking. It was off and on, off and on," he says. "I thought it would show people that I *did* have control over it, that I wasn't an alcoholic."

Even after his cardiomypathy diagnosis, Carter struggled to accept that if he wanted to live, he can no longer drink alcohol. Although he is in therapy to help cope with his addictions, there have been a few times, he admits, "where I started to drink, like, a couple of glasses of wine, and I couldn't control it." A blunt talk with his cardiologist set him straight. "Once you get this condition, it can get progressively worse until the heart is extremely weak," says Dr. Polakoff. "But if he abstains from alcohol and other substances, I think we can get his heart back to normal."

Today, Carter is sober, living in a two-story, colonial-style home just outside Nashville ("I had to get away from the temptations" in L.A., he explains) and in the best shape of his life. And while he has not spoken to his father recently, Carter says their relationship is intact, and he is repairing the rift with his mother. "It's a process, and something that's going to take years to mend," he says, "but we're moving forward." Things with his younger brother Aaron have also improved, so much that Aaron moved in with Carter last summer. "I tell him all the time, 'You're a completely different person than a year ago,'" says Aaron. "Then he was irritable, unhappy. And now he's happy, fun to be around."

The biggest change, however, is that Carter is looking forward to the future instead of the past. About to complete a Backstreet Boys world tour, Carter and his bandmates are also recording a new album. And although his parents' divorce proved scarring enough to lead Carter, who has been dating a salesgirl for the past few months, to say, "I don't believe in marriage," he could see himself starting a family "someday, a little ways down the line."

For now Carter's focus remains squarely on himself and his recovery. "I'm trying to make myself better," he says. "But I don't regret anything that I've gone through, because it makes me who I am."

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"How he lost 57 lbs.!" (small box, page 65)
[info]misha_bsb
2009-02-05 05:07 am UTC (link)
"How he lost 57 lbs.!"

Along with getting clean, Carter has cleaned up his eating habits as well, trading in chicken wings and pizza for three-egg-white omelets, grilled chicken sandwiches and lots of veggies (asparagus and beets are his new favorites). Overall, he limits himself to 2,000 calories a day and works out five times a week.

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"What is cardiomyopathy?" (small box, page 66)
[info]misha_bsb
2009-02-05 05:13 am UTC (link)
"What is cardiomyopathy?"

Although the causes of cardiomyopathy vary - from coronary-artery-disease to a viral infection to diabetes to, in Carter's situation, a buildup of toxins from drugs and alcohol - the result is the same: a weakening of the heart, which in extreme cases can require a transplant or lead to sudden death. Warning signs include shortness of breath, rapid or irregular heartbeat, ankle or leg swelling, fatigue and chest discomfort. It was these last two that prompted Carter to seek help. The good news: Because his condition was caught early, he can prevent his heart from deteriorating further if he abstains from drugs and alcohol. Dr Polakoff urges other heavy partiers to pay attention to their health. "Nick is lucky," says Polakoff. "We saved him from a major tragedy."

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[info]kitapita
2009-02-05 05:17 am UTC (link)
Thanks for typing that all up, Mike.

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[info]aphroditeangel
2009-02-05 05:37 am UTC (link)
I love you for typing this all up when does the issue come out?? I still want a copy for myself

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[info]misha_bsb
2009-02-05 05:46 am UTC (link)
It's already on sale in some areas. Should be available in all areas by Friday.

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Captions for the B/W shirltess photo on pg 64
[info]misha_bsb
2009-02-05 05:53 am UTC (link)


Upper caption:
Carter says he hated looking "swollen all the time" during his partying days. Now "I have a jaw again! I have abs," he says. "It still shocks me."

Lower caption:
"I'd never taken my shirt off onstage until the end of the U.S tour (in November). I took it off and threw it into the audience. It was amazing."

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Re: Captions for the B/W shirltess photo on pg 64
[info]sporkfullofshit
2009-02-06 07:05 am UTC (link)
Omg I was there!
And the girl that caught it had to deal with some guy biting her for it.

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Caption for color shirtless photo on pg 62
[info]misha_bsb
2009-02-05 06:05 am UTC (link)



Caption, upper left:
"I got the demons off my chest," says Carter (in Hollywood Nov. 24), "and I'm doing everything I can so I won't ever get back there."

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[info]3am_moonlight
2009-02-05 08:41 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for typing up all that, Mike. :)

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[info]mellie98
2009-02-06 02:30 am UTC (link)
Wow, thanks for typing that up Mike.

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[info]dangerzone91
2009-02-11 02:16 pm UTC (link)
What edition of People was this? Feb 9th?

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[info]misha_bsb
2009-02-12 07:01 pm UTC (link)
Feb 16

Main cover story is about Jessica Simpson putting on weight.

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[info]kalie_b
2009-05-25 12:15 pm UTC (link)
He's back in his senses now, it took him a while to understand the real effect of his crazy lifestyle. You can do crazy things without risking your health and life for it. Too bad it took him so long to realize it. I don't recall Nick attending a alcohol rehab program, I hope he is really off drugs and alcohol now.

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