Coroner Reveals Aaron Carter’s Cause of Death

The late singer and rapper Aaron Carter accidentally drowned in a tub after taking sedatives and using spray cleaners to inhale, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner.

Carter was found in his bathtub in Lancaster, Calif., on November 5. He was discovered fully submerged, according to the coroner’s office, NPR reports. A housekeeper had let herself in Carter’s house meaning to get him a coffee, and she found him fully submerged in a T-shirt and necklace.

Police officers had been called to Carter’s house around 2 a.m. the day before for a welfare check. Carter had been “huffing” inhalant in an Instagram live video, according to a police report that accompanied the autopsy report.

Officers left after Carter told them to. House later, Carter missed a meeting with a drug counselor.

NPR reports that the autopsy report found sedative alprazolam, which is sold under the brand name Xanax, was found in his system. It also found the compressed gas difluoroethane. The coroner’s office wrote that it is "a gas commonly used as a propellant in air spray cleaners" and "can induce feelings of euphoria when inhaled."

The combination of the substances led to Carter’s fatal drowning.

Carter’s housekeeper called 911 after finding him. Paramedics declared the younger brother of Backstreet Boys’s Nick Carter, dead when they arrived.

The report, NPR reports, said that the singer was "a celebrity with a known history of substance abuse" and he had "multiple interactions with local police relating to the substance abuse."

It revealed that Carter had recently relapsed after a history of inhalant use.

Carter has a noted pop career in the late 1990s.

After its release in 2000, his sophomore album, Aaron's Party (Come and Get It), went triple platinum, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

In 2006, Carter appeared along with his siblings, Nick, B.J., Aaron, Leslie, and Angel Carter on the E! realty series House of Carters. His sister Leslie died in 2012 at 25.

In 2017, Carter came out as bisexual in a Twitter post. He said he would be open to dating a man if one "comes into my life and sparks an interest."

"I grew up in this entertainment industry at a very young age and when I was around 13-years-old I started to find boys and girls attractive," the singer, who had high-profile relationships with Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff when he was younger, wrote at the time. "There were years that went by that I thought about, but it wasn't until I was 17-years-old, after a few relationships with girls, I had an experience with a male that I had an attraction to who I also worked with and grew up with."

He confirmed he was bisexual in an episode of The Doctors.

However, in 2018, Carter said his comments were "misconstrued."

"Yeah, no," Carter said during a podcast interview when asked if he would date a man. "It was more so just a story that happened when I was like 17 with somebody, and I can find men and women attractive, but when it comes down to it, I think it was a little misconstrued."