“The Meaning Of Mariah Carey” Showed Everyone Else The Mariah I Love

Mariah had grown accustomed to this violence, while simultaneously experiencing racism at school and in every neighborhood she and her family flocked to. Whether it was the pack of teachers laughing at her family portrait, where she depicted her Black father with a darker crayon, or the pack of girls who lured Mariah on a trip and chanted the n-word at her, the racism she faced as a biracial little girl seemed inescapable. As did, according to Mariah, her family’s betrayal. When her brother wasn’t flying into fits of rage and physically attacking her mother and father, Mariah dealt with her sister, who she described as a troubled girl who tried to exploit Mariah at a young age. “When I was 12 years old, my sister drugged me with Valium, offered me a pinky nail full of cocaine, inflicted me with third-degree burns and tried to sell me out to a pimp.”

The second and third parts of the memoir showed the trickle-down effect of her trauma, as Mariah achieved superstardom success. As the reader traverses from each part, they can hear the backstories of No. 1 records, while simultaneously linking the pieces of her childhood to the events of her young adulthood, where she met Tommy Mottola. “I gravitated toward a patriarch so young, predictably,” she sings on “Petals,” an introspective track on her album Rainbow. And now, having read the full accounts of what happened, that gravitation seemed almost inevitable.

Still reeling from childhood pain — and still dodging bullets from the characters who were responsible — Mariah had faced a new type of isolation and trauma with her marriage to Tommy. Her every move was monitored at their mansion, which she dubbed “Sing Sing.” Mariah wrote how she was followed, surveilled, and kept away from the public. And as they tend to, things got worse as time went on. Toward the end of the marriage, Mariah alleged how Tommy held a knife to her face when she was about to leave him.

“Tommy walked over and picked up the butter knife from the place setting in front of me. He pressed the flat side of it against my right cheek. Every muscle in my face clenched. My entire body locked in place; my lungs stiffened. Tommy held the knife there. His boys watched and didn’t say a word. After what seemed like forever, he slowly dragged the thin, cool strip of metal down my burning face. I was searing with rage from the excruciating humiliation of his terrifying, cowardly performance in my kitchen, in front of my ‘colleagues.’ That was his last show with me as the captive audience at Sing Sing.”

The book isn’t all about trauma, though I’d still have your tissues ready. There are alluring tales of romances and run-ins with A-list celebrities, like Derek Jeter, Luis Miguel, and Tupac Shakur. Mariah shared the infamous backstory behind her feud with a singer she “doesn’t know” (who she doesn’t even name in her book), and we even get to hear about the iconic Burger King trip with Da Brat that was treated as a national security threat.