Mariah Carey, 35, is the biggest-selling female recording artist of all time.
Divorced, she lives in Manhattan with her dog Jack
My age doesn't seem like a reality to me.
I still feel like I'm 12 years old.
But I've had an interesting journey.
My mother wasn't one for boundaries,
but when you're given freedom you crave
structure. That's probably why I never did anything too outrageous as a kid.
My parents were opposites.
My mother was the free spirit and my father a strict
disciplinarian. They split up when I was three and despite the issues that came
with, I know we were all better off that way. They were not meant to stay
together.
When you don't look like your parents,
you inevitably have questions about your
identity. My mother is white Irish American, my father was African American with
a bit of Venezuelan. I remember drawing my family in kindergarten and coloring
my face tan and my mom's pink, which was fine, but when I colored my father's
face brown, the teacher told me I had used the wrong crayon. It took me over 20
years to deal with being bi-racial.
Ambition is a talent in its own right.
I had the gift of music, but it was
ambition that enabled me to translate that into my career.
I thought being famous would validate me,
but I also knew I didn't want to be
poor. We had 13 homes when I was growing up and never owned one of them. I
always felt that the rug could be pulled from under us and I was determined I
wasn't going to live like that.
People call me a diva
- but that is just so they can put me in a box. My mother
was an opera singer, so I think I understand the word 'diva' enough to know that
I'm not one.
The one thing I forgot for too long was the importance of having fun.
I was
hanging out with Joss Stone recently and I realized that when I was her age, I
never mingled with other artists. I do wish that I had been able to enjoy all
that more back then.
I never believed in marriage,
because I always thought people get divorced
anyway. I had no template for a proper relationship, which goes a long way to
explaining why I made a bad choice for the wrong reasons. [Her ex-husband is
Tommy Mottola, the former head of Sony and the man credited with mentoring her
to stardom; they divorced in 1998]
When you obsess about something,
and someone comes along who is prepared to
obsess with you - that is a heady mix. Tommy and I bonded over music and his
belief in me, which was great. But he became too controlling. I called our home
Sing Sing, because it was like a beautiful prison. I had no freedom or downtime.
There are women who are manipulated all their lives,
but I'm not one of them. I
have an in-built radar now that prevents anyone too controlling coming too
close.
My 'breakdown' was my breakthrough.
After my marriage ended, I worked myself
into the ground. Eventually my body reminded me that I was human [she was
hospitalized after collapsing in 2001] and I needed to create balance in my
life.
Casual sex destroys self-respect.
Some people use it to feel better about
themselves, but in fact it ruins lives. I've seen it for myself [her elder
sister, Alison, is a former prostitute and drug addict] and that is why I have
never believed in promiscuity.
Once you become famous,
you are not normal. Everyone has an agenda and for a
long time I didn't know who I could trust. But you can't live like that forever
- you have to be able to dive in and take the risk that you might get hurt.
I would not want a child to be trapped by my fame.
I've chosen this life, but my
child would be born into it. I'm not saying never, but I'd have to be in a place
where it felt right.
I'm no longer afraid to be who I am.
I feel I can get through anything,
especially after the last few difficult years. I'm here and I'm grateful beyond
belief for that.
Mariah Carey's new single 'Get Your Number'/'Shake It Off', and album The
Emancipation of Mimi are out now on Def Jam. Her Greatest Hits album is also
available on SonyBMG.
SEO | [PR] 爆速!無料ブログ 無料ホームページ開設 無料ライブ放送 | ||