There’s an old adage in show business that you have to strike while the iron’s hot. That missive gets murkier when someone dies. Actress Hilary Duff went hard at Ballast Books for doing just that with Aaron Carter – rushing out a memoir quickly after his death.
Duff and Carter are both former Disney actors and they actually dated for a while. She said the rushed release of Aaron Carter: An Incomplete Story of an Incomplete Life was simply in bad taste.
“It’s really sad that within a week of Aaron’s death there’s a publisher that seems to be recklessly pushing a book out to capitalize on this tragedy without taking appropriate time or care to fact check the validity of his work,” she said in a statement shared by E! News.
She added that releasing the book now shows the company’s obvious monetary motivations. “To water down Aaron’s life story to what seems to be unverified click-bait for profit is disgusting. In no way do I condone shedding any light on what is so obviously an uninformed, heartless, money grab.”
Earlier this week, Duff shared a tribute to Carter on Instagram.
Carter’s team also spoke out against the book. “In the few short days following our dear friend’s passing we have been trying to grieve and process while simultaneously having to deal with obscenely disrespectful and unauthorized releases. This is a time for mourning and reflection not heartless money grabs and attention seeking.”
Author Andy Symonds spent three years working with Carter and interviewing him for the book. Carter died on Nov. 5; the book comes out on Nov. 15. Symonds defended his reasons for publishing in a recent Facebook post.
Carter’s book features a number of showbiz stories. Ballast recently shared an excerpt about a night the “That’s How I Beat Shaq” singer spent with Michael Jackson, according to NME. Carter said he spent the night at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch and found the singer “crouched at the end of his bed in his underwear, apparently sleepwalking.”
He said he shook Jackson awake and told him to go back to bed. Very exciting stuff, apparently.