10 PHOTOS
2. Her name comes from the song “They Call the Wind Maria” from the 1951 Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon. Though it isn’t spelled the same, it is pronounced the same.
3. When she was young, her family, which includes two older siblings, was subjected to racist attacks because of her parents’ interracial marriage. Their dogs were poisoned and a car was blown up. “That was the beginning of a nightmare,” Patricia told Oprah Winfrey during a 1999 interview with her daughter. “When we were eating one night, someone fired a shot through the window. Luckily, none of the children were in the room.”
5. While recording her third album Music Box, she and Columbia Records head Tommy Mottola began dating. They tied the knot in a lavish ceremony in June 5, 1993. They eventually separated in 1997, with Carey citing his controlling nature and growing creative differences at the catalyst for their relationship’s deterioration. Carey opened up about the relationship on her E! reality series, Mariah’s World, saying “I was with someone at the time that had a lot of control over my life. He was older than me by a lot and had a lot of power and he wanted me to remain away from most people, like sequestered. I had to get permission to leave [the house]…I never thought I would get out of there.”
10. Carey’s debut eponymous album was released on June 12, 1990. She earned two Grammys following its release, including one for Best New Artist, and it made her the first musical act since the Jackson 5 to have their first four singles reach number one.
11. Carey’s had a life-long affection for Marilyn Monroe and, in 1999, she paid over $600,000 for the icon’s white baby grand piano when it came up for auction at Christie’s.
13. Though she suffered a miscarriage shortly after marrying Cannon, the couple would welcome twins Moroccan and Monroe in 2011. Monroe was named after Carey’s idol, Marilyn Monroe, while Moroccan was named after the décor in the room where his father proposed to his mother.
14. In 2008, Carey got herself into some hot water when she performed in a New Year’s Eve concert for the family of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. She would later claim to “feel horrible and embarrassed to have participated in the event,” with her rep Cindi Berger promising in March 2011 that royalties for her upcoming song “Save The Day” would be donated to charities that create awareness for human rights issues. “Save The Day” was never released.
after a bizarre appearance on TRL that involved her showing up unannounced, pushing an ice cream cart, and stripping off her clothes, she spent two weeks recovering in a Connecticut mental hospital, citing extreme exhaustion for her breakdown. She later revealed in 2018 that she had been diagnosed with bipolar II disorder at the time, but kept her diagnosis private. “I’m just in a really good place right now, where I’m comfortable discussing my struggles with bipolar II disorder,” she told People at the time. “I’m hopeful we can get to a place where the stigma is lifted from people going through anything alone. It can be incredibly isolating. It does not have to define you and I refuse to allow it to define me or control me.”16. Just months after her stay in the institution, Carey unleashed Glitter on the world. The film and its soundtrack were such bombs that they prompted Virgin Records to buy her out of her record deal for $50 million. She would sign a contract with Island Records in early 2002, launching the record label MonarC in the process.
17. Glitter isn’t the only film Carey has appeared in over the years. She earned some pretty great reviews for her work as a social worker in friend Lee Daniels‘ award-winning 2009 film Precious. In 2013, she appeared in another Daniels’ film, The Butler, playing Hattie Pearl, the mother of the film’s titular butler, Cecil Gaines (played by Forest Whitaker).
19. According to Page Six, Carey’s two Jack Russell terriers only fly first class and each with their own respective staff member. Why? Because they apparently loathe one another. “Mariah’s dogs only fly first. But the two pets hate each other, so [they] have to be placed in separate kennels for the journey and travel with two separate members of her staff,” a source told the outlet in 2016
.20. Following a career resurgence with the 2005 release of The Emancipation of Mimi, Carey begun lending her name and likeness to endorsement deals for the first time in her career, beginning with ads for Intel Centrino personal computers. In 2006, after signing a contract with Gillette’s “Legs of a Goddess” campaign, Carey reportedly insured her legs for $1 billion.
23. Her godmother is Patti LaBelle, and the R&B icon has admitted to slapping her goddaughter around back in the day.
25. She does not know Jennifer Lopez. So stop asking her.
