A Songwriters Hall of Fame induction, a couple of high profile relationships, and a holiday
song you’ll never get out of your head.
Mariah Carey has spent most of her life in the spotlight, so where does she turn for
healing?
Keep watching to find out.
While it might be hard to believe given that she's been living an extraordinary life for
decades, Mariah Carey reportedly had a rough childhood.
During an appearance on "CBS This Morning" in September 2020, Carey revealed that she
had to heal from a lot of things that happened in her past, including her mother's alleged
jealousy of her career.
"It’s such a complicated relationship."
Carey was on the show to promote her memoir, "The Meaning of Mariah Carey," in which she
details a lot of the dysfunction she grew up with.
She explained that her mother, an aspiring singer and former Juilliard student, once
told her that she should only hope to be half the singer she was.
"I don’t even know that she would even remember that.
Yeah, that one statement did live with me for the rest of my life, though."
Carey also related a darker story in her book, writing that her sister, who is eight years
older than her, introduced her to both drugs and older men when Carey was only 12 years
old.
Despite that, Carey manages to find empathy for the big sister she no longer speaks to,
adding,
"The promise of her life was squandered in a tragic series of cheap bargains rather than
being redeemed through the difficult, lifelong work of recovery and rebuilding oneself."
By the time she was 18 years old, Mariah Carey had left home and moved to New York City.
Like a lot of people her age, she found herself working pretty standard jobs: waiting tables
and working coat checks.
As Carey told Pitchfork, she also had to endure pretty cramped living conditions.
She lived with two roommates on the Upper West Side in an apartment that was so small
it required her to climb onto the kitchen counter before she could get into the loft
where she slept.
The cost?
Oh, just $500 a month.
Despite her less-than-glam living conditions, Carey had a few impressive friends from the
jump.
One of them was Lenny Kravitz, who later told "Watch What Happens Live" that he used to
spend a lot of time in that very apartment.
He said,
"We all used to hang out on the Upper West Side at a friends' house and at her house
with her roommates.”
"We knew she was gonna make it.
The talent was just too incredible."
Mariah Carey enjoyed her first No. 1 hit in 1990 with the release of "Vision of Love."
The singer would spend the decade amassing hit after hit, ultimately scoring a whopping
18 No. 1 songs.
In April 2018, People noted that no other recording artist could top Carey's reign.
The publication also shares that "Vision of Love" was co-written with Carey's good friend
Ben Margulies when she was still a teen.
The demo version of the song would eventually end up on the tape that Carey's future manager
and husband, Tommy Mottola, would hear prior to signing her to Sony.
The song did so well that Carey won the Grammy for best female pop vocal performance the
following year.
Despite enjoying such wild success so early on in the career, Carey later told Pitchfork
that all wasn't as good as it seemed.
She explained that even though she had hit after hit, she wasn't getting to really live
the life that should have accompanied that experience.
She shared,
"In the early part of my success, I was cloistered.
I was like a Rapunzel in a castle kept away from the world, so I didn't get to feel famous."
Tommy Mottola's interest in Mariah Carey didn't begin and end with her professional talent.
The two married in June 1993, even though there's a 21-year age difference between them.
Carey hasn't spoken much about her marriage to Mottola since their 1998 divorce, but she
did write about what their relationship was like in her memoir "The Meaning of Mariah
Carey."
Carey was quite candid about her relationship with Mottola, sharing,
"It was like having a completely controlling father or warden."
She also recounted a story in which she and rapper Da Brat decided to drive to Burger
King together to get food, and Mottola went berserk and even sent out people to find them.
She wrote that Da Brat encouraged her to get out of the marriage, and quoting her as saying,
"You have everything, but if you can't be free to go to Burger King when you want, you
ain't got nothing.
You need to get out of there."
For his part, Mottola has simply said that he's happy to have played a role in Mariah's
incredible success.
While she's clearly enjoyed a successful and lucrative career, Mariah Carey has definitely
been wrapped up in more than her fair share of bad and dramatic record deals.
As the BBC reported at the time, Carey signed with EMI Records in 2001 for $70 million,
which was one of the biggest record deals of the era.
Her subsequent record "Glitter" failed to perform at the level to which both Carey and
record labels were accustomed.
EMI was reportedly displeased and unsure of what to do with the singer.
In the end, she was paid $28 million after agreeing to walk away from the deal.
In 2002, Carey signed a new deal with Universal Records for $20 million and agreed to make
three albums for the label.
She told the Orlando Sentinel that she was happy with her new home, adding,
"The guys who run Universal paid no attention to all that drama.
They were so practical and understanding."
In 2017, Carey announced she had formed her own label, Butterfly MC Records, in partnership
with Epic Records.
She released a statement affirming her enthusiasm for the move, saying,
"I am so thrilled for this next chapter and to continue working with, and for, everyone
that I love.”
From the early days of her career, Mariah Carey was clear about one thing: When it comes
to performing her music, she will only perform songs that she has been credited as writing.
While speaking to Pitchfork, she explained that after seeing documentaries about how
The Beatles lost their publishing rights or had them stolen, she wanted to do things a
different way.
Carey also added that, as a teen, she was offered $5,000 for her songs but wouldn't
take it.
When Brenda K. Starr wanted to buy Carey's songs and put them on her album, Carey politely
declined.
She told Pitchfork,
"I just believed [in my songs]."
Despite her clearly successful career as a songwriter, Carey wasn't inducted into the
Songwriters Hall of Fame until 2020 — decades after her career as a singer and songwriter
began.
"This always happens to me, it's the drama of it all.
It's the drama."
Mariah Carey had a few high-profile relationships following her divorce from Tommy Mottola,
including with New York Yankees player Derek Jeter.
But it was her 2008 marriage to Nick Cannon that surprised many.
Brides noted that while the two were first introduced in 2005, they didn't officially
kick things off romantically until three years later.
Cannon later told Variety that their relationship worked, in part, because he was happy to take
a back seat to Carey as needed, explaining,
"I had no problem falling back.
It was never a competition with me.
It was like 'I'll turn mine off so she can turn hers on.'
I was comfortable in myself and who I was."
Cannon proposed to Carey within weeks, and he proposed twice.
The pair got married in April 2008, with Carey telling People that they believed they were
two halves of the same whole.
She gushed,
"I never felt a love like this was in the cards for me."
This enthusiasm and love for one another made things all the more surprising when Cannon
filed for divorce in 2014.
While Brides pointed out they have each hinted that their relationship could have been saved,
the pair ultimately finalized their divorce in 2016.
Before Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon divorced in 2016, they celebrated the birth of their
twins, Moroccan and Monroe, in 2011.
In fact, the babies were born on Carey and Cannon's wedding anniversary, April 30.
Carey's representative supplied the media and public with updates soon after the twins
arrived.
It was even shared that the new family of four listened to Carey's song "We Belong Together"
following the twins' birth.
Following their birth, Carey told OK! magazine that she and Cannon were focused on keeping
the twins grounded.
She acknowledged that the kids would have access to a pretty exclusive world, and explained
that the two would need to approach things carefully.
She added,
"One thing I'm sure of is that I'll be grateful for the twins every day, no matter what."
In 2013, Carey opened up about what life with the twins was like.
She told ABC News,
"[Monroe is] a total diva.
She's into jewelry.
She's fascinated by jewelry."
She also shared that Moroccan is calmer and enjoys hanging out with mom, saying,
"We watch movies all the time together, relax.
He's more chill."
Mariah Carey is just as much of a fan of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" as the rest of
us are.
Carey told Billboard that when she wrote the song for her 1994 Christmas album she had
no idea that it would become as massive as it has, explaining that the timing of the
song was unusual for a performer.
She said,
"It was so early on in my career and most young artists, at that time, weren't really
making Christmas music at the onset of their careers."
"Which is a huge compliment to me, ya know."
Clearly, the song has enormous staying power, and Carey also shared that she's simply grateful
that she has had the experience of putting it out into the world.
The public obviously agrees, as Billboard has placed the song at the top of its Greatest
of All Time Holiday 100 Songs list.
In 2018, Mariah Carey opened about a deeply personal matter: She was diagnosed with bipolar
disorder in 2001.
The diagnosis led to a complete physical and mental breakdown, with Carey admitting to
People that she lived in "denial and isolation" for far too long.
She added that eventually she had to get the support she needed, explaining,
"It was too heavy a burden to carry and I simply couldn't do that anymore."
Carey focused on receiving the appropriate treatment, and was soon able to get back to
writing and performing.
She also shared that her official diagnosis is bipolar II disorder, which means she experiences
both periods of hypomania and periods of depression, though both are not as severe as they can
be with bipolar I disorder.
For Carey, like a lot of people, finding the right type and amount of medication has been
key to keeping things regulated and easier to deal with.
For years, Carey says she believed she simply had a sleep disorder.
She described what she experienced, saying,
"I was working and working and working...
I was irritable and in constant fear of letting people down.
It turns out that I was experiencing a form of mania."
After what Carey described as "hitting a wall," things would change and she'd feel really
low energy.
Happily, experiencing motherhood herself seems to be doing a lot of good for Mariah Carey.
While speaking to Oprah Winfrey about her childhood, Carey says that, as confusing and
challenging as many of the things she experienced were, she has found a lot of joy and peace
in parenting her children Moroccan and Monroe.
She shared with Today,
"They help to heal me every day.
Every time we have a moment that feels real and authentic and genuine and it's them loving
me unconditionally."
Carey clarified that she knows moms face challenges, saying,
"I think it's really a tough job to be a mother...
so I literally try to make my kids' lives amazing."
In a separate interview with "CBS This Morning," Carey elaborated on how the way she parents
her children has been impacted by how she grew up.
She explained one of the most important parts of raising her kids to her, saying,
"For me, it's very important that the kids always feel safe and that they feel seen and
heard and that they know that they are loved unconditionally, and that no matter what,
I'll be there for them."
"That no matter what, I’ll be there for them."
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text
Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI
(6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.