PASADENA, Calif. -- Did you have a troubled childhood? Is your family a dysfunctional mess? Where better to sort it all out than in front of millions of people on television!
That seems to be the trend this press tour. Monday, Danny Bonaduce and Shannen Doherty were at the press tour turning their tabloid troubles into cable TV shows. On Tuesday, Backstreet Boy Nick Carter and his younger brother Aaron were on hand to promote House Of Carters, a new Osbornes-like series premiering this fall on E! Entertainment.
The eight-part reality series spies on the pair plus their three female siblings -- Leslie (who was trying to launch a singing career in Toronto), Angel and Bobbie Jean -- as they escape the clutches of their estranged parents and all live together in Nick's California home. Think of it as Party Of Five Damaged Kids.
Nick, 26, insisted Tuesday that he was no father figure, more of a big brother (with unlimited credit).
He called his parents "selfish" and suggested that they were too focused on pushing his brother and him into showbusiness. Nick was 12 when he began singing with the Backstreet Boys; Aaron's career began at age seven.
Their parents' ugly divorce literally ripped the family apart, with one sister living with mom and the others with dad.
So why is getting back together under one roof a good idea for a TV show? "We came from a lot of fighting and stuff like that, so the only way we knew to communicate was to fight and to be, you know, very loud," said Nick.
Apparently that will be hugely entertaining.
Nick figures that, with all that he and his siblings have been through, "the only way we can explain it is through a television show."
Paging Dr. Phil.