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Mariah Carey, 50 has decided to reveal all in her memoir, “The meaning of Mariah Carey” in which she talks about her marriage to her much older ex-husband Tommy Mottola (now 71).
Ahead of the reveal which is expected on Tuesday, the 71 year old Tommy Mottola said
“I am deeply gratified to have played that role in Mariah’s well-deserved and remarkable success, and continue to wish her and her family only the very best.”
Mariah and Tommy married when she was 23 and he was 44
The two got married in 1993 when Mariah was 23 and Mottola was 44, the marriage didn’t last long and after 5 years the two divorced in 1998.
The relationship started in 1991 and turned romantic after her self-titled debut album became the best-selling record that year, according to Cosmopolitan. In 2019, Carey revealed that the marriage was "almost like being a prisoner."
Mariah felt like a prisoner
“There was no freedom for me as a human being,” she told the magazine at the time. “... You might want to picture a child bride. There was a conscious effort to keep me as this all-American — whatever that means — girl. There was no freedom for me as a human being. It was almost like being a prisoner.”
Mottola called it absolutely wrong
Mottola opened up about their relationship in a book of his own, 2013's Hitmaker: The Man and His Music, calling it “absolutely wrong and inappropriate.”
“If it seemed like I was controlling, let me apologize again. Was I obsessive? Yes. But that was also part of the reason for her success.”
He further related of the relationship, “The problem was that I was the chairman of Sony and her husband at the same time.”
He admitted that Carey called their home Sing Sing (in reference to a prison) because she felt trapped.
Derek Jeter was the reason for breaking up
Carey revealed on Thursday on the Oprah Winfrey show that Derek Jeter was the real catalyst for leaving Mottola.
Oprah Winfery show
Oprah asks;
"Before you divorced Tommy Mottola, you met Yankee baseball player Derek Jeter, and you say he served a very high purpose in your life,"
"This was one of those situations of the right person at the right place and the right time. What was it about Derek? He got his own song too, right?"
Carey replies
"He got his own song. He got a few songs. He was a catalyst that helped me get out of that relationship because I believed that there was somebody else."
"It was the racial situation, his mom is Irish, his dad is Black. But he was also very ambiguous looking to me. I didn't know who he was, we met and I've written songs about it," she added.
"And honestly, I don't think it was like, 'Oh my gosh, he was the love of my life,'" Carey continued.
"Like, at the time I did, because I didn't think I would ever meet anybody who wouldn't — what's the word? I used the word, I just thought about this last night. Not looked down on but feel superior to me because of the fact that I'm not one way or another in most people's minds, and they have preconceived notions, whatever. But he was a catalyst. And I think that it was beautiful."
