Throughout his journey with Backstreet Boys, Nick Carter’s aesthetic has seen its fair share of transformation. However, not all of these transformations are fondly remembered. In a 2022 interview with Us Weekly, the former teen idol and his wife of nine years, Lauren Kitt, discussed some of his most memorable (and regrettable) style choices.
The first on Carter’s list was an outfit featuring a Miami Dolphins jacket paired with a bowl-cut hairstyle. After examining his old photo for a while, Carter described the outfit:
“Nightmare! First of all, I’m a Buccaneers fan, so that needs to be destroyed. I just liked Dan Marino at the time. I don’t have this sort of jacket, but that thing is probably worth something nowadays.”
As for the bowl cut? He gave no such explanation.
Then there was the outfit for the 2004 MTV Movie Awards. Here, Carter wore distressed bell-bottom blue jeans paired with a brown belt and a khaki shirt. But it was his disheveled blonde locks that drew most of his own criticism. Carter humorously said:
“You know what that is? That’s my Rascal Flatts moment. Oh my god, yeah, destroy!”
At the 1999 Billboard Music Awards, Carter opted for another intentionally disheveled look. He recalled ignoring advice from stylists and makeup artists, but it seems he regrets it now:
“So basically, I thought I was doing something cool by going to the Billboard Music Awards. I’m going against our stylist and makeup artists, and I’m like, ‘Give me the brush!’ I did this frizzy thing, and I didn’t look good at all!”
His 2002 appearance at Z100’s Zootopia summer concert event, held at the Giants Stadium in New Jersey, saw him sport what his wife, Kitt, described as a ‘hedgehog’ hairstyle. This was accompanied by a thick white athletic headband worn on his forehead. Carter’s playful comment was:
“OK, Sonic needs to go!”
The following picture was from a Backstreet Boys concert that took place in 1998, where the band members wore black and white jumpsuits, gloves, and sunglasses. Resembling their looks to Slipknot, Carter admitted:
“No, no, no! It does look like Slipknot! That looks like Slipknot, just without the masks!”
However, not all of Carter’s past styles stir regret. His 1997 look for the MTV Europe Music Awards, where he wore a slicked-back hairstyle and a black shirt topped with a navy blue bomber jacket, was met with his own approval:
“That looks normal. That actually looks further back in the day, before we had done our ‘Millenium’ album.”
You can watch the full interview below.