Nick Carter and Aaron Carter’s rise to fame and tragic struggles are covered in the new docuseries ‘Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter’
Melissa Schuman found a friend in Nick Carter’s ex-girlfriend Kaya Jones after she accused the Backstreet Boys star of rape.
In a clip from the new Investigation Discovery docuseries Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter shared exclusively with PEOPLE, Jones reveals that she reached out to Schuman in 2017 after the Dream singer said Carter raped her in his Santa Monica apartment in 2003.
“Nick Carter was my boyfriend when I was in the Pussycat Dolls, and I saw the very detailed allegation about Nick and the response,” Jones, now 39, says. “It bothered me. Because it was discrediting this girl [Schuman]. So I wanted to hear what Melissa had to say.”
Jones, who left the Pussycat Dolls in 2004, reached out to Schuman via Twitter and offered her her number, and Schuman eventually gave her a ring.
“Kaya was so kind to me,” she says in the clip. “I think we must’ve spoken for hours. I needed someone to tell me that my life wasn’t over.
In a statement shared with PEOPLE, Carter’s attorney Dale Hayes Jr. called the claims made in Fallen Idols “outrageous,” and noted that Carter’s countersuit of his accusers is still pending in court.
“These are exactly the same outrageous claims that led us to sue this gang of conspirators,” Hayes said. “Those cases are working their way through the legal system now, and, based on both the initial court rulings and the overwhelming evidence, we have every belief that we will prevail and hold them accountable for spreading these falsehoods.”
Schuman, now 39, first came forward with her allegations against Carter, 44, in a 2017 blog post on her website, saying she was an 18-year-old virgin when he raped her at his home. At the time, Carter denied the allegations, saying that while they had had sex, it was consensual.
In February 2023, Schuman was included in a countersuit filed by Carter against Shannon Ruth, who sued him two months earlier for alleged sexual battery. The singer accused the women of taking advantage of the #MeToo movement and using it to launch a conspiracy to “defame and vilify” him for attention and money.
In April 2023, Schuman sued Carter for sexual assault and battery over the alleged 2003 incident. His attorney said at the time that Schuman’s allegations were “false” and a “PR stunt.” Both lawsuits are pending.
In the Fallen Idols clip, Jones recalls tweeting a warning to Carter in 2017 that read, “Don’t lie Nick. I’m no longer keeping your secrets.” She also hints at an undisclosed incident that prompted her to break up with him.
“I saw a young woman trying to speak and someone who thought he had more power and authority try to shut her up. I tweeted that,” she says of Schuman. “It was my way of saying, ‘Don’t push it.’ because he knows what I know. He knows why I left him. And so do I believe that something horrific happened to that girl? Yes. Yes I do.”
In a previously released trailer for Fallen Idols, Jones says she knows things about Carter “that could burn his whole house down… I know how evil he can be.”
The four-part docuseries follows the lives of Carter and his late brother Aaron, from their rise to pop stardom in the late 1990s to their tragic struggles and family strife, including Aaron’s 2022 death. It includes interviews with Carter’s accusers, family friends and cousins, and Aaron’s former fiancée Melanie Martin.
Fallen Idols: Nick and Aaron Carter premieres across two nights on Monday, May 27 and Tuesday, May 28 from 9-11 p.m. ET/PT on ID and streaming on Max.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.
