Hilary Duff Pays Tribute to Late Ex Aaron Carter During Philadelphia Concert
By Alexus Mosley
Rich Fury/Getty Images
Hilary Duff is remembering an important part of her early years in the spotlight.
During the Philadelphia stop of her Lucky Me tour on August 9, Duff paid tribute to her late ex-boyfriend Aaron Carter by taking the stage in a white T-shirt featuring a young Carter. The nostalgic shirt showed the singer in denim overalls alongside his name. It was a subtle but touching nod to someone who played a memorable role in Duff’s teenage years.
Duff and Carter began dating when they were young teenagers and had an on-and-off relationship for several years during the early 2000s. Their romance unfolded as both were becoming fixtures of the Disney and teen-pop era, with Carter even guest-starring on Lizzie McGuire in the 2001 holiday episode “Aaron Carter’s Coming to Town.”
For anyone who grew up during the Y2K era, Hilary and Aaron were one of those quintessential young-Hollywood couples. Their relationship (and the much-discussed love triangle involving Lindsay Lohan) became regular teen-magazine material before the pair eventually went their separate ways.
But Duff has made it clear that her relationship with Carter remained a meaningful part of her past.
Photo Credit: Instagram/@chuckearling
Following Carter’s death in November 2022 at age 34, Duff publicly mourned her former boyfriend, remembering the teenage years they shared and expressing sadness over the difficulties he experienced later in life.
More recently, Duff revealed that Carter unexpectedly came up during a conversation with a psychic, an experience she described while appearing on the Las Culturistas podcast earlier this year. According to Duff, the psychic mentioned an “Aaron” with two A’s before realizing who Duff was and making the connection to her childhood boyfriend. Duff kept the details of the alleged message private but described the encounter as a particularly unusual experience.
Now, more than two decades after their teenage romance and nearly four years after Carter’s death, Duff’s simple concert wardrobe choice offered another quiet acknowledgment of that history.