For Mariah Carey, the last fifty years have been one heck of a rollercoaster. The five-time Grammy winner pulls back the veil on her life and career thus far in her new biography, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, giving fans an unparalleled view of one of the most gifted — and private — artists in music history.
Wayward Child, Sing. Sing., All That Glitters and Emancipation is the four sections Carey divides the novel amongst. Readers are taken in the first few chapters from her traumatic New York beginnings to the early years of her career, when she married Tommy Mottola, Sony Music CEO, who found her in 1988.
The “Hero” singer openly muses over the highs and lows of her first marriage and how her affair with New York Yankees player Derek Jeter gave her the confidence to leave Mottola in 1997. She also talks about her 2001 breakdown like never before, clarifying her well-publicized rehab stay, her infamous TRL performance, and—yes, the box-office flop that Glitter produced.
Still, at the end of the storm there is a rainbow—pun meant. In the concluding pages of her biography, Carey writes glowingly of her marriage to Nick Cannon and how they have stayed friendly after their 2014 divorce while parenting their now-9-year-old twins, Moroccan and Monroe (a.k.a. Roc and Roe or Dem Babies).
Though the Songbird Supreme writes in great detail about many facets of her existence, she chose to leave out several memories from her book. She skips over her alleged relationship with Eminem, her brief engagement to billionaire businessman James Packer, and her current romance with backup dancer Bryan Tanaka; she previously revealed that she has bipolar disorder but does not mention the diagnosis in her memoir.
Still, The Meaning of Mariah Carey is bursting with once-in- a-lifetime tales. Read eight insights down below, then grab a copy right now from bookshops for much more!
She Grew Up in a ‘Violent’ Household
Carey notes that some of her “earliest memories are of violent events involving her brother, Morgan.” She says, “By the time I was a toddler, I had developed the instincts to sense when violence was coming,” seeing herself as a “intruder in my own family” and remembering one Christmas when Morgan, their sister, Allison, and their mother, Patricia, “explode[d] in a torrent of verbal abuse.” She also considers Allison’s past of drug misuse and adolescent pregnancy (“That was not going to be me”). (Carey has been estranged from her siblings for years; they have not made public comments.)
Mottola ‘Monitored’ Her ‘Every Move’
She believed he was overbearing soon after Carey and Mottola, now 71, tied the married in 1993. She says of him, “like humidity — inescapable,” adding, “It felt like he was cutting off my circulation, keeping me from my friends and what little ‘family’ I had.” Nobody that wasn’t under Tommy’s authority could be contacted. I couldn’t engage in any activity or outing with anyone. In my own residence, I was unable to move without restriction.
Under her bed, she claims to have kept a “to go” bag loaded with basics in case she ever needed to flee Mottola, who purportedly “monitored [her] — minute by minute, day after day, year after year.” Although he told Page Six earlier this month that he wished “her and her family only the very best,” the music entrepreneur has not publicly replied to the allegations made by his ex-wife.)
She ‘Questioned’ Her Decision to Marry Mottola
Carey maintains she had “a lot of respect” for Mottola since he “protected” her from her “dysfunctional family,” but she second-guessed walking down the aisle with him. Many sensible people asked why I married Tommy. But none of them questioned the choice more than I did, she notes. She also recalls their wedding day, stating she “saw no way out” and “never dreamed of getting married,” young. At the time, (Carey and Mottola were 23 and 43 respectively.)
She Had an Affair With Jeter
Carey says she wanted “to be like Peter Pan and fly the f–k away” from Mottola, so she saw a chance when she met Jeter, now 46, at a dinner in the mid-1990s. She dropped right over shoes upon learning that the MLB star also had multiracial parents. They traded numbers and started to sneak about New York City together. “Derek was just the second person I had slept with ever (coincidentally, his number was 2 on the Yankees),” she notes. At the time, Carey considered Jeter as her “soulmate” since he confirmed she “could have something beautiful on the other side of the hell that was [her] marriage.” Though their relationship was short, the pop diva acknowledges the athlete in her autobiography for being “the catalyst [she] needed to get out from under Tommy’s terrible control.”
She Secretly Recorded an Alternative Rock Album
Between sessions for her 1995 album, Daydream, Carey wrote, produced, and provided backing vocals for the single record of alternative rock band Chick. “I wanted to laugh as well as break free, let loose, and communicate my suffering. After Daydream every night, I really looked forward doing my alter-ego band practices. (Carey tweeted earlier this week saying she is “on a quest to unearth the version of this album with my lead vocals and will not stop” until it’s found.)
She Blames Mottola for ‘Glitter’ Bombing at the Box Office
Carey charges her ex-husband with using “all his power and connections to punish” her by undermining her 2001 film, which debuted following their 1998 divorce and her 2000 exit from Sony Music. “Much of what went wrong with Glitter traced back to Tommy. She recalls that he was furious.
She Thought She ‘Would Never Have Kids’ Until She Met Cannon
Three years after viewing Canon’s film Drumline, Carey had the opportunity to meet the All That alum—now 39—when he awarded her with a Teen Choice Award in 2005. Soon after, they began corresponding on the phone, then married in 2008. “I honestly felt I would never have children. Our love changed that, says Carey, saying she and Cannon “got married so quickly” in order to begin a family.
Her and Cannon’s ‘Egos and Emotions’ Led to Their Divorce
2011 saw Carey and Cannon become parents, and their marriage started to suffer. “Making the necessary adult adjustments to be working parents in entertainment took its toll on our relationship, and the end of our marriage came fast, as it began,” she notes. Carey acknowledges that she and the actor most certainly could have worked it out, but their “egos and emotions got fired.” Their divorce took place in 2016.