LOS ANGELES — Melanie Martin, who was engaged to Aaron Carter before his Nov. 5 death, reportedly has regained full custody of her 1-year-old son with the late singer.
Martin’s mother was her grandson Prince’s court-ordered guardian up until Thursday when according to TMZ a hearing was held in family court. Martin — who was in New York at the time and is on her way back to the L.A. area — was found fit to care for the boy and was awarded full custody, the website said.
Carter and Martin lost custody of Prince Lyric Carter shortly before he checked into rehab for a fifth time in mid-September.
The former pop star (and brother of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter) shared in a video made at the time that he and Martin lost custody due to domestic violence and drug-use concerns. He said the rehab stint wasn’t court-mandated but that he was doing it to get his son back.
Carter was found dead in a bathtub at his Lancaster home on Nov. 5. His housekeeper/house sitter — per TMZ, a formerly unhoused woman who had been working for him for only two or three weeks — called 911 after finding him unresponsive.
In September, after fans expressed concerns that he was using again, law enforcement had checked on Carter at home but found no drugs. Three days before he died, he was pulled over for weaving on the road in an RV, but deputies determined he wasn’t under the influence at the time.
After Carter’s death, a source told the Los Angeles Times that investigators found evidence of medications and compressed air in the Lancaster home’s master bedroom and bathroom. The singer talked about being secretly addicted to huffing in 2019 during an episode of “The Doctors.” He claimed his late sister Leslie Carter, who died of an overdose in 2012, had introduced him to the habit.
“I’m very emotional thinking we could have been a family, but Aaron would be so happy knowing I got [their son] back,” Martin told TMZ on Thursday, adding that she believed the singer would have been “so proud” of her.
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