Mariah Carey

[Qball]

Niiice...

[AnaBB Cover]

The interview :

"Let's drink from festive glasses," announces Mariah Carey, a bejeweled champagne flute in each hand as she tiptoes barefoot into "the Moroccan Lounge" - a sitting room on the top floor of her three-story New York apartment that is decorated like a Marrakesh hash parlor, minus the hash. She sets the flutes down on a table alongside the less festive glasses from which we'd already been drinking and then reassumes her position curled up in the corner of the couch. Her personal assistant brings in a tray that carries a large bottle of water for Mariah and a can of Diet Coke for me, and she hands each of us a small linen napkin. It's past midnight, and Mariah doesn't usually allow herself caffeine at this hour, because she's an insomniac and has a very low tolerance for "things that make you speedy." Still, she asks if I mind sharing a splash of my Diet Coke, reasoning that she's in an "awake moment" anyway.

Among her assorted Mariah-isms, the concept of "moments" looms large. In the course of the evening, she refers to precisely forty-nine different kinds: analytical moments, schmaltz moments, fairy-tale moments, complete-truth moments, celebratory moments, Biblical moments and, yes, diva moments. In 2001, following an embarrassing "TRL moment," Mariah says she had her share of "bleak moments" and even a couple of "woe-is-me moments." Her favorite canary-colored bathing suit from when she was nine, she says, was a "clingy-to-the-body moment." As is her current ensemble: painted-on jeans and itty-bitty white tank top with the number seventeen ironed on the front in bold black digits. Seventeen, no doubt, as in how many Number One singles Mariah has amassed in the past decade and a half. In December, when "Don't Forget About Us," the latest cut from her five-times-platinum The Emancipation of Mimi, reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Mariah tied Elvis Presley's record for Number Ones; four more top singles and she'll outpace the Beatles.

The thirty-five-year-old singer has had a momentous year and one that is all the sweeter because it came on the heels of a momentary - though devastating - slump. Released last spring, The Emancipation of Mimi, surpassed the low expectations with which it was greeted to become the best-selling album of 2005. Mariah says that Mimi, her tenth studio album, is a product of her newfound creative freedom. "In the past, I knew people wanted certain formulaic things from me," she says. "By 'people,' I mean executives."

But Mimi incorporates Mariah's cherished hip-hop influences in greater proportion than ever. She brought the Neptunes and her old friend Snoop Dogg in for Say Somethin'," traded verses with Twista on "So Lonely," duetted with long-time producer Jermaine Dupri on "Get Your Number" and teamed with Nelly on "To The Floor." Though there are still the belt-it-out ballads, they're R&B slow jams with a bangin' bottom end that often rivals Mariah's own bangin' bottom end. "The funny thing is, I"ve always known that what I really loved would be commercially successful," she says. Her instincts proved correct: The record has already spawned three hits - "Don't Forget About Us," "Shake It Off" and "We Belong Together" - and has earned her eight Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year. When we met just a few weeks before the awards, it was clear that - no matter how many Grammys she would or would not collect - Mariah had safely reassumed her pop-diva throne. "People ask me, 'Isn't this really the vindication of Mariah Carey?' she says. "Not really. My whole life has been a series of overcoming obstacles. Since I've always had to struggle, I've always expected that I will have to struggle."

"She's on the third chapter of her career," says Island Def Jam chairman Antonio 'LA" Reid. "The first chapter had major successes. The second chapter had some major disappointments. Now, she's at the point where she has the wherewithal to stay in the game for as long as it takes, to withstand the ups and downs. It's like Muhammad Ali or Frank Sinatra. And I think her fans have a real love for her because she has had those ups and downs and she's still here.

Mariah arrived characteristically late for dinner at a Brazilian restaurant around the corner from her apartment, but she is also characteristically apologetic about it. Affecting exaggerated fabulosity, she purrs, " Sorry darling. The pedicurist fell on her orange stick. Stitches were required." And then, without missing a beat: "What are we drinking? Wine? Vodka has fewer calories. All right, you twisted my arm. I'll have a glass of wine."

Tonight is the singer's last night of indulgence before her personal trainer Patricia comes back on duty to whip her into shape for the Grammys. She's especially concerned about looking her best because of the jabs she took about the low-cut black number she wore a week earlier at the Golden Globes, custom-designed for her by Karl Lagerfeld. "The winner for the too-tight dress... goes to Mariah Carey," wrote one critic. "She takes the cake, and eats it too." Said another, "Carey, according to my seven-year-old, "blew up like a truck tire." "Satin is a very unforgiving fabric," Mariah notes. "And what was I gonna do? Call frickin' Karl Lagerfeld and say, 'Can you please make it out of matte jersey instead?' " Of course, Mariah is used to having her outfits panned: She made Mr. Blackwell's worst-dressed list last year ("The world applauds your musical emancipation... but please - leave that body to our imagination") and she often - let's face it - wears clothes tighter, tinier and generally more hooched-out than most thirty-five-old women. Still, though not a Zellwegerian stick figure by any stretch of the matte jersey, the five-foot-nine Mariah is considerably leaner than you might expect: not so much full-figured as sturdy. She says she has always tended to be muscular and notes that, in seventh grade, she beat every boy in her class at arm wrestling.

"I can't try to compete with people that weigh eighty pounds soaking wet when, look, I'm ethnic," she says. "I've got a butt, and I want to keep it because I like it. That's what it goes! I'm gonna pull it together and be as thin as I can be for the Grammys, but there's only a certain amount of weight that I wanna lose. The weight-obsessed workout monger is not my role model as a singer. They might be pop stars and icons, but they're not necessarily what I like to call a saaaanger. They ain't saaangin'."

Mariah's big voice may be her greatest source of pride - it is, in her words, her "instrument" - but she is equally keen to be known as one of the few pop stars who has had a hand in the writing and/or production of nearly every song she's ever recorded. "Even from the beginning, I said, "'If you want to put me with people to write with and collaborate, that's fine, but don't try to force me to record someone else's song.' I'm not saying I'm friggin' William Shakespeare. But even writing a melody, it's a release. And I really have a need to express myself."

Of course, there was a time when expressing herself was an uphill battle for Mariah. "They laughed at me at the label when I played them my 'Fantasy' remix with Ol' Dirty Bastard," she says. "They - one person - was like, 'What the hell is this? I could do that." But you can't explain to someone who didn't grow up on hip-hop and who's wanting to listen to the Good-Fellas soundtrack exclusively that this is hot and it will be a classic."

It's not Mariah's style to name names, whether she's dishing about a certain female artist who got skinny with the help of illegal pharmaceuticals or whether she's referring less than obliquely to her ex-husband, former Sony Music chief Tommy Mottola. It was Mottola who discovered Mariah and signed her to Columbia Records after a friend of Mariah's passed him a demo tape at a party in 1988. Mottola and Mariah became romantically involved shortly thereafter, and - once he had divorced his wife - the pair married in 1993. But, as is well-known by now, Mariah was miserable in the relationship, which she calls "abusive" and one that "purposely preyed on every insecurity I have." The couple divorced five years later, when Mariah still had a couple of albums remaining in her contract with Sony.

"It was real struggle being there while still having a certain person in power and being divorced from him," she says. "Things get a little awkward when you're dealing with someone who's obsessed, and angry, and powerful. Leaving him was one of the toughest things I've ever done. It's very easy to manipulate someone when you're twenty-plus years older than them. Whatever. I'm not placing blame. Nobody held a gun to my head." She pauses and smiles. "At least I don't think anybody held a gun to my head."

When Patricia Carey gave birth to a seven-pound baby girl at 7:27 A.M. on March 27th, 1970, the nurse turned to her and said, "That's gonna be one lucky baby." Patricia, an opera singer, even gave her daughter a moniker that she knew would work as a stage name: Mariah Carey. From the time Mariah was old enough to remember, Patricia told her, "You

[chiva474128]

Intel ad

[Qball]

[moiselles]

She looks so pretty on the cover of Rollingstone

[Qball]

She looks so pretty on the cover of Rollingstone

She does. That's a lovely picture.

[Qball]

[AnaBB Cover]

Oh no Mariah !

[Qball]

Haha...

Those are from 2003, here's the rest...

^ Love these!

[AnaBB Cover]

[Lolita]

Does Mariah have any tattoos?

[AnaBB Cover]

I don't think so.

[AnaBB Cover]

[Qball]

[Qball]

Errm... wrong glasses, Mariah...

[Qball]

Mariah @ Teen Choice Awards 2005

[Qball]

2005 MTV Movie Awards

[Qball]