Nick Carter

Nickolas Gene Carter (born January 28, 1980) is an American singer and a member of the vocal group 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. Early life Carter was born in Jamestown, New York, where his parents, Jane Eleonora Schneck (née Spaulding, previously Carter) and Robert Carter (d. 2017), owned a bar called the Yankee Rebel in Westfield, New York. He has English, Welsh, Irish, and German ancestry. Several years later, when Carter was four, the family moved to Ruskin, Florida, near Tampa, and managed the Garden Villa Retirement Home, where they added to the family. Carter's siblings include Leslie Carter (1986 - 2012) and Aaron Carter (1987 - 2022). He states in J-14 that having siblings, "I guess you could say it was a happy change because now I have lots of siblings. My dad, who's an only child, got all the attention [from his parents when he was a kid], but he had to make friends. I could make friends, but I always knew I had someone to play with and hang out with." Career Growing up, Carter began his acting and singing career at a young age when his mother heard him outside and enrolled him in voice lessons with a voice teacher named Marianne Prinkey. She later got him dance lessons in ballet, tap, and hip hop at Karl and DiMarco's School of Theatre and Dance when he was 10. He also did several commercials, such as the Florida State Lottery and The Money Store, talent shows, and the Florida State Fair, auditioned for several acting roles in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and performed around Tampa Bay, FL. As a kid, he described himself as the weird kid, whose friends were older people, and was consistently picked on a lot until fourth grade, after his family moved to Apollo Beach, Florida. His first role was the lead role in the fourth-grade production of Phantom of the Opera at Miles Elementary School. His performance was so energetic that he received a standing ovation, with people crying in the audience at how wonderful the boy's voice projected. He also did an educational video called "Reach For a Book," a show called "The Klub" and performed at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers home games for two years.