Mariah Carey: a story of challenges and transformation

Mariah Carey turns 53 in 2022. She was born into a middle-class family in Long Island, New York on 1969. From there, she's come a very long way. But it wasn't an easy life. Read further to know all about Mariah Carey's trials and tribulations.

Mariah Carey did not have an easy childhood. Her father was an African-American man from Venezuela, and the young singer and her siblings were often the target of racism in the neighborhood, as her biographer Chris Nickson describes.

There were also a lot of fights within the family. Carey's parents divorced when she was a child, and she wrote open-heartedly about these events in her 2020 memoir, 'The Meaning of Mariah.'

Her brother Morgan (photo) and sister Alison did not like to be reminded of those stories at all, though, and they decided to sue Mariah for writing about them.

After the divorce of her parents, Mariah lived with her mother, who'd been an opera singer and was teaching music classes. Thanks to her mother, she developed her singing skills and brought out her first album in 1990. The name Mariah Carey would soon be known everywhere.

While getting her big break in music, Mariah Carey lived a kind of fairy tale. Her marriage with Tommy Mottola, the boss of Columbia Records, was traditionally heteropatriarchal. He was a strong man in the music business when they met at a party in 1989. A year later, Mottola produced her first album and in 1993 they got married.

The talent was all Mariah's though. With or without Tommy Mottola, she would have made it.

(On the photo with legendary artist James Brown)

The first ('Mariah Carey' 1990), second ('Emotions' 1991) and third album ('Music Box' 1993) all became iconic. Not to mention her 1992 MTV Unplugged recording with the legendary cover of the Jackson 5's 'I'll be there.'

(Photo: the cover for Mariah Carey's MTV Unplugged album)

Together with another 90s diva, Whitney Houston, she was at the top of the charts.

Between 1990 and 2000, Mariah Carey recorded seven studio albums containing the best of her career. When she performed at the Oscars with Whitney Houson (photo), she was arguably at her peak.

The 1994 album 'Merry Christmas' had a lasting success. The song 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' continues to bring in profits to this day. The album was followed by 'Daydream' (1995), 'Butterfly' (1997) and 'Rainbow' (1999), all for Columbia Records.

By the change of the century, her dark blonde curls were something of the past. Mariah Carey became blonder and also bustier - more in line with the commercial pop / R&B market.

With such a voice, great songs, and looks to attract a younger audience with every year, it was no surprise that Sony paid more than 100 million dollars for Mariah to leave Columbia and record four albums with them.

However, Mariah Carey's album with Sony and Virgin was a disappointment. Her first album - and film - 'Glitter' meant a radical artistic turn for the singer, and it didn't end well.

On a personal level, Mariah had broken things off with Tommy Mottola and started seeing the Mexican singer Luis Miguel. They dated from 1998 to 2001. When the relationship ended and 'Glitter' came out in 2001, Mariah Carey entered a turbulent period in her life.

In the summer of 2001, after her break-up with Luis Miguel, Mariah Carey had to be hospitalised. The official reason was an "emotional and physical crisis."  'Glitter' had not been released yet, and the label decided to postpone it to the fall.

Its new date was... September 11, 2001... the day of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers. All of Mariah Carey's plans seemed to go wrong.

Critics wrote devastating reviews of the album. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, for example, called 'Glitter' "an utter meltdown: the pop equivalent of Chernobyl."

Mariah Carey continued making music, though, and she also continued to work in film. 'Glitter' the movie in 2001 was only the beginning. However, films like 'Wise Girls' in 2002 did not have a lot of success.

Meanwhile, EMI, who had Carey under contract, dropped the artist in 2002 because of poor 'Glitter' sales. It had only sold two million copies - very few for Mariah Carey standards. She continued with Universal, and the next album, 'Charmbracelet,' sold better than 'Glitter.' It did not convince a lot of critics though.

Mariah Carey has never shied away from participating in philanthropic or civic interest campaigns. She sang with Pavarotti in 1999 to raise money for wartorn Guatemala and Kosovo. She also raised funds for those affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and encouraged young people to vote.

In 2005, Mariah Carey's artistic comeback began with the album 'The Emancipation of Mimi.' She also released a 'Greatest Hits' album that sold very well at a time when the record industry was generally doing badly.

A big hit for Mariah Carey was 'We Belong Together,' a ballad that reminded listeners of the 'old' Mariah who put her heart and soul in the music and ignored the glitter and bling-bling of showbiz. In 2006 and 2007, it rained Grammy nominations for Mariah Carey.

Meanwhile, she continued to try and get a break in Hollywood. The crime movie 'State Property 2' (2005), in which she cooperated with a group of famous rap musicians, didn't score at all, but in 2008 she had a little more success with 'Tennessee'. Mariah made the interesting move to country for that film.

And then there was 'Precious.' She had just a small part in this ground-breaking film, but people noticed her anyway. Mariah Carey's role of an unglamorous looking social worker in the tragic coming-of-age movie earned her the Screen Actors Guild Award.

In 2010, Mariah Carey was going to play a role in the Tyler Perry production 'For Colored Girls,' another film dealing with themes of racism and inequality. However, she dropped out of the project citing 'medical reasons.' The fact that she became a mother of twins in 2011 was probably the reason she decided not to do the movie.

In 2008, Mariah Carey married Nick Cannon. The comedian was eleven years younger than her, and they appeared a much more successful match than her earlier lovers Tommy Mottola and Luis Miguel. The singer's second marriage lasted until 2016.

Mariah and Nick would have twins together in 2011: Monroe and Moroccan Scott.

Over time, Mariah Carey retained the youthful air of a pop star, but she also matured. Her iconic status is more lasting than her musical hits or misses.

(Photo: Mariah Carey at the 1998 VH1 divas show with Gloria Estefan, Aretha Franklin, Carole King, Shania Twain and Celine Dion)

Mariah Carey has a striking voice with a five-octave vocal range. Her singing skills and frequent use of the 'whistle register' (the highest sound, resembling a flute or whistle) got her the nickname 'Songbird Supreme'.

The amazing success of her holiday album and the single 'All I Want for Christmas' earned Mariah Carey the title 'Queen of Christmas.' She's had several successful rereleases of her Christmas hits as well as holiday TV shows. The latest was 'Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special' in 2020.

In recent years, Mariah Carey has continued to record albums, perform in sold-out concerts, and remain closely linked to Las Vegas, the place that many big stars end up making their second home at a certain point in their career.

On a personal level, Mariah Carey got a new lover: the choreographer Bryan Tanaka. She is 10 years older than him but, considering that they have been happy together since 2017, that fact is of no importance.

Of course, they also perform together at Mariah's concerts in Las Vegas. The shows had to come to a halt due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In September 2020, Mariah Carey caused a stir when she published her open-hearted memoir. 'The Meaning of Mariah' describes the singer's difficult childhood and her dysfunctional family. Her brother and sister decided to sue her, claiming she exaggerated stories, made them look bad, and caused "emotional distress."

Mariah's sister Alison claimed $1.25 million to compensate for the book causing her to fall back into "alcohol abuse" and becoming "uncharacteristically tearful," People cited the court records. Her brother Morgan indicated that he lost out of a movie project thanks to unflattering descriptions about him in the memoir.

The star's lawyers have responded to her siblings' claims of defamation with the statement that Mariah's story was worth telling. As Page Six cites them, they say the book may have a 'educational value' particularly to "any young person who may find her/himself stuck in similarly harsh and dispiriting circumstances."

Mariah Carey thinks people could "benefit from the inspiration " her book gives them, "to employ their talents in pursuit of their dreams."

(Photo: Mariah Carey with Randy Jackson and Nicki Minaj on the jury of 'American Idol,' 2013)

In fact, Mariah is thinking about turning the memoir into a film. With many references to problems of non-white youth, ethnicity and racism, she expects the movie can make a contribution to the societal debate.

It's not unthinkable. While not as heart-breaking as 'Precious,' it's possible that Mariah's own coming-of-age story from Long Island to LA becomes a dramatic movie or series. That is, if she can manage to stay out of legal trouble with her siblings.