Mariah Carey Answers a Question About Her Marriage to Tommy Mottola That Fans Wondered for Decades
Mariah Carey is arguably one of the best singers of all time. The 50-year-old songbird is famous for her out-of-this-world singing, beauty, and stardom. Although many people remember her marriage to comedian and TV host Nick Cannon, many might forget that the beauty was once married to music exec Tommy Mattola.
Many fans have always had questions about her marriage to the media mogul that Carey refused to answer directly. However, with her new memoir, fans can rest easy because the songstress has responded to the questions people had regarding her marriage to Mattola.
How Mariah Carey got famous
Carey is one of the few famous stars who had it rough growing up. The songbird was born in March 1970 in Huntington, New York, to Patricia and Alfred Roy Carey. Patricia was an opera singer and vocal coach while Alfred was an aeronautical engineer.
Carey’s parents were of different races, with her mother being of Irish descent and her father of Afro-Venezuelan descent. Due to their ethnicity difference, Carey’s mother got disowned by her family, and Carey didn’t get to see most of her extended family as a result.
When Carey was growing up, she experienced first-hand racism due to her father’s race. Their neighbors in Huntington set their car on fire and even poisoned the family dog. Eventually, her parents got divorced, and she ended up having limited contact with her father.
Carey has two older siblings Alison and Morgan, whom she describes as always trying to tear each other down. The songstress attended Harborfields High School and graduated in 1987. In school, she showed a particular love for the arts.
Carey moved to New York after graduating high school to pursue music. She also attended and completed beauty school. To support herself, she sang background vocals for Brenda K Starr, a Puerto Rican freestyle singer.
How Mariah Carey met Tommy Mattola
Carey’s big break came when she accompanied Starr to a gala in 1988. She then met Mattola and handed him her demo. After listening to the demo, Mattola signed her to Columbia Records and began promoting her eponymous debut album, Mariah Carey.
Carey ended up winning two awards in the 33rd Annual Grammy Awards for the slots of Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. When she was recording the album Music Box, Mattola had full creative control of what Carey put out.
Mattola and Carey began dating during that time and got married on June 5, 1993, at a lavish wedding. Carey’s dress was designer-made, and it even blew the star away. She said that she was mesmerized by it as she had never imagined wearing something as expensive as that. She added that she had only had a few t-shirts in rotation a few months before.
A few months into the marriage, the couple’s relationship began deteriorating. The two had different creative ideas, and according to Carey, Mattola was too controlling and abusive. Finally, the celebrity couple ended their marriage on May 30, 1997. The divorce got finalized on December 2, 2000, and Mattola remarried around that same time.
Mariah Carey’s new book puts all the speculation to rest
Carey recently came out with her new memoir that details her life’s most intimate and personal details. The book is called The Meaning of Mariah Carey. She talks of her tumultuous relationship with her siblings, childhood trauma and racism, and her marriage to Mattola.
She details in the book that her marriage to the media mogul wasn’t intimate in any way. She simply trusted him with her work. Carey explains that due to the lack of a stable childhood and father figure, she looked up to Mattola to care for her. Thus began what was to be her childhood all over again. Mattola has come out to wish the songbird success in her book and other endeavors.
