Her mother Patricia was an opera singer. She taught Mariah how to sing.
Mariah asks to be photographed only from the right side, which she considers her "good side." On New Year's Day 2024 she broke her rule by posting a
photo of her left side with the caption "New year, new beginnings... taking a picture from my 'bad side'!"
Her first album was released in 1990. By the end of the decade, she had 14 #1 hits and her seven albums had sold a staggering 46 million just in America, making her the best-selling female singer of the '90s.
In 2001, she left Sony Records and signed with Virgin. The deal paid her $80 million for five albums, which was the biggest music deal ever until Whitney Houston signed with Arista Records for $100 million a few months later. In 2002, after Carey's unsuccessful Glitter album, they cut their losses and paid Carey $28 million to leave the label. She later signed with Island/Def Jam.
The rider for her 2000 tour required Cristal champagne and bendy straws provided backstage at her concerts.
In the late '80s she was a backup singer for Brenda K. Starr, whom Mariah says "took care of me like a big sister." In tribute, Carey she covered Starr's hit "
I Still Believe" in 1999.
She won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 1991, the year after
Milli Vanilli won. At the American Music Awards, she lost the Favorite New Artist award to Vanilla Ice.
In 2001, after a promotional tour for Glitter, a movie she starred in and co-produced, she had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. She missed the MTV 20th anniversary special, which she was supposed to headline, as a result, and was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Mariah's heritage is multiracial. Her mother, Patricia Carey, is Irish-American and her father, Alfred Roy Carey, is African-American and Venezuelan.
She sings in a five-octave range, including the whistle register, which you can hear on songs like "Emotions" and "Someday." Before Mariah came along, the whistle register was most famously used by Minnie Riperton on her 1974 #1 hit "
Lovin' You."
From 1993-1998, she was married to Tommy Mottola, the president of her record label, Sony Music. When they got married, she was 24 and he was 43.
Mariah was conspicuously omitted from VH1's 1999 televised countdown of "100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll," despite having 15 #1 singles to her credit by that time.
Carey was the first recording artist in history to have her first five singles hit the #1 spot on the Hot 100: "Vision of Love" (1990), "Love Takes Time" (1990), "Someday" (1991), "I Don't Wanna Cry" (1991), "Emotions" (1991).
In her 2020 memoir, Carey talked about growing up in a dysfunctional, sometimes abusive household with her older sister Alison and older brother Morgan. Both sued her for defamation.
Alison, who struggled with drug addiction and had been arrested for prostitution, died, according to Mariah, on the same day as their mother: August 24, 2024.
Mariah moved around a lot growing up. At one point she lived in Rosie O'Donnell's neighborhood in Commack, Long Island. Rosie was in high school and Mariah was just a little girl.
When Mariah was in high school she was already busy juggling her fledgling professional singing career, doing studio work and backup singing gigs. As a result, she frequently missed school. Her classmates grew so accustomed to her absences that they began to refer to her by the nickname "Mirage."
Despite her diva reputation, Mariah is known for her sense of humor. She likes to joke with interviewers about her 500 hours of beauty school education, which she endured in order to have a fall-back plan if singing failed to pay the bills. On the Rosie O'Donnell Show she even gave the host a brief on-the-spot makeover to vouch for her cosmetic skills. Mariah assessed Rosie's "photogenic qualities" and decided that a flip of the hair and a re-location of the part line would improve look. Rosie did look pretty fashion-forward as a result.
Mariah has a great ear for music and can mimic just about anything she hears with pinpoint accuracy. This made her a great mentor on the seventh season of American Idol in 2008, when she worked with the contestants on their vocal and music arrangements. Mariah gave many astute and helpful suggestions, like telling David Archuleta not to be afraid to go to his falsetto range, and offered him an example of what she meant, singing the melody for him. The contestants from season 7 have said that Mariah was really nice and down to earth, that she gave them thoughtful advice and was great to work with.
Mariah married Nick Cannon, the host of America's Got Talent, on April 30, 2008. In August 2014 Nick Cannon announced that he and Mariah had separated a few months earlier.
Mariah has owned several Jack Russell terriers. A sampling of names: Jack, Jack Junior (JJ), Cha-Cha and Squeak.
Carey gave birth to fraternal twins via C-section in April 2011. The babies were named Monroe, after Marilyn Monroe (Carey's icon of inspiration) and Moroccan Scott, after the Moroccan-style room where Nick Cannon proposed to Carey.
When "
All I Want For Christmas Is You" spent its third week atop Hot 100 dated January 4, 2020, Carey became the first artist to have a #1 hit in four different decades: the '90s, '00s, '10s and '20s. Eight artists had topped the chart in three decades: Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Usher.
Mariah Carey notched up yet another #1 in 2020, but for once it wasn't on a music chart. Her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, debuted at the top of The New York Times list of nonfiction bestsellers dated October 18, 2020.
Mariah Carey's videos were all over MTV, but surprisingly, she didn't win an MTV Video Music Award until 2025, when "
Type Dangerous" won for Best R&B. That year, she was also presented with the Video Vanguard Award and
sang a selection of her hits on show. "I can't believe I'm getting my first VMA tonight," she said in her speech. "I just have one question: What in the Sam Hill were you waiting for!"
