Hilary Duff on Aaron Carter's Death: 'Rest Easy'

Twenty years ago, Aaron Carter and Hilary Duff were a teen couple, one whose secretive relationship made their fans equal parts crazy and crazy-jealous.

On Saturday, following Carter's tragic death at 34, Duff found herself eulogizing a first crush — and she offered just the right words for the occasion.

On a black background, the "Younger" star wrote, "For Aaron- I'm deeply sorry that life was so hard for you and that you had to struggle in-front of the whole world. You had a charm that was absolutely effervescent...boy did my teenage self love you deeply."

She ended with, "Sending love to your family at this time. Rest easy."

The two reportedly began dating on his 13th birthday and continued seeing each other for about three years.

Carter also ppeared on Duff's phenomenally popular Disney Channel series "Lizzie McGuire" back in 2001, playing himself.

They broke up badly, and fans suspected Lindsay Lohan was a spoiler, but regardless, as recently as 2014, Carter referred to Duff as "the love of my life."

Around this time, he also tweeted, "I'll spend the rest of my life trying to better myself to get back to her. I don't care what ANY of you think. ????" and "hilary duff is flawless."

Duff said at the time, when asked her thoughts on Aaron's ongoing professions, "I was not expecting this question. He does, I keep seeing that, that he keeps doing that. I don't know how I feel. I mean, that was so long ago, and obviously I'm still married, and I have a baby and we kind of just…"

The reporter offered "weird" and she didn't reject it.

Duff is a mom of three, and is married to Matthew Koma.