Mariah Carey has cast aside the cutesy denim shorts and high street ensembles in favour of a sexy new image. The girl next door has evolved into a cool sophisticate in provocative Gucci spike heels, short skirts and even shorter tops. And with the new image comes a new state of mind, a new album and a fierce new sense of independence.
At just 27 and the biggest-selling female recording artist of the Nineties, Mariah has sold 80 million records worldwide and amassed a £300 million fortune. But she has only just discovered what it's like to be truly happy — and she claims money, success and looks can't buy you bliss like this.
Last May, after four years and five platinum albums, Mariah took the painful decision to leave her husband, Sony Music Entertainment boss Tommy Mottola. She also fired her manager, Randy Hoffman, and her lawyer, Alan Grubman, close associates of Mottola.
It was a brave move. Mottle is regarded by insiders as “the most powerful man in the music industry.” It was an especially courageous leap, considering Mariah had been close, professionally and personally, to all three since she was 18. Indeed, they made her Sony's most profitable artist. It's impossible to say who of the three will fare worse from the split. But right now, Mariah isn't giving it too much thought. She's determinedly focused on the future — and it's looking bright.
“Ending my marriage and my business relationships was a process of self-preservation.” she says. “When people have been with you since you were a teenager, they always think of you as a child, no matter what you do. I decided to move on&hellip: I had to do it.”
She is sad her marriage has failed. “I thought it was for life,” she sighs. “The most important thing to me now is having my own team of people around me. It means I don't have to worry about anyone having ulterior motives. It also means I can make time for myself, for fun!”
This mature, single-minded woman is a far cry from the naïve 18-year-old waitress and sometime backing singer from New York who, nine years ago, handed a demo tape to Tommy Mottola at a party. The story goes that Mottle plated the tape as he drove home, spun the car around after the second track, and raced back to the party to find his Cinderella. But in true fairy-tale fashion, she had already disappeared into the night.
Convinced he had chanced upon a genuine starlet, Mottola tracked Mariah down over the weekend, and on the Monday, she and her mother were sitting in Mottola's office, listening to him explain how lucky she was to have been chosen as one of Sony's priority artists.
Short, stocky and middle-aged, Mottle must have seemed like a fairy godfather to Mariah. Until then, life hadn't been easy for her. Mariah's Irish-American mother left her Venezuelan father when she was three and the family moved house 13 times in as many years.
“My mother becomes upset when I say I had a crazy upbringing, but it isn't her fault,” she says. “It was circumstances and the negative influence of others. They exposed me to the seedier side of life. My ticket out was my singing. It's always made me feel special.”
Until her radical change, Mariah was what the music industry calls a work horse; removed from the real world and imprisoned by her fame and Sony's deadlines. Rumour has it that Mottola, fiercely possessive, kept her locked away. Mariah says only that she barely went out, preferring to have “friends back to the house” or to “hire a plane to go to Disney World for the day.”
But since the split, Mariah has been hitting the town with her friends and new colleagues, rapper and star producer Sean “Puffy” Combs and Ol' Dirty Bastard from rap band Wu-Tang Clan. These outings have prompted a series of (false) tabloid reports that she is dating again.
“I'm so careful about who I let in, which is why I have to laugh when I read these reports,” she says. “The truth is, because of the way I was raised, I'm almost paranoid about being intimate with anyone. I'm not a loose freak running around with a different guy every week.”
She says Puffy and co have merely replaced some of the “safer,” middle-of-the-road producers, who have worked on her material in the past, and that their street influence has helped her create her most modern and urban piece of work to date, Butterfly — an album that, for the first time, encompasses the drama of her private life both lyrically and musically.
And what drama. Mariah's sister, Alison, contracted HIV after years of heroin abuse and teenage prostitution, and wrote a scathing book about her. They are no longer in contact after Mariah and her mother “kidnapped” Alison's nine-year-old son because they didn't approve of Alison's lifestyle. Mariah's brother Morgan, who was let off an attempted murder charge when he was 18, has also spoken out against his sister.
Meanwhile, Mariah's ex-boyfriend, in jail for dealing cocaine, is threatening to sue her for a slice of her fortune; three disgruntled songwriters claim Mariah stole their songs; and her stepfather claims Mariah owes him $600,000, because — he says — she encouraged her mother to have an extra-marital affair…
Mariah's tough background appears to have equipped her to handle the chaos in which she finds herself. “I've become cautious because I've never had one person whom I trusted completely,” she says. “Especially now all these family matters have been in the press. I'm not the sort of person who airs her dirty linen in public, but when they go to the papers, I just have to deal with it.”
She acknowledges the difficulties of “dealing with it” alone, but admits it's part of the process of regaining control of her life — as is running her own record label, making and producing her albums, directing her videos and taking acting classed in preparation for her assault on the film industry this year.
“Butterfly [which Mariah controlled from start to finish] was therapy for me because it was like putting my life on paper. I can't believe I've been so honest. Some of those songs are so personal to me.”
“The last time I was single I was in high school and that's all the experience I have to draw on me when it comes to being on my own,” she continues. “It's been scary at times. I don't know if I'll ever want to marry again. If I did, it would have to be because I want children.”
So watch this space. The music industry's most infamous fairy-tale may well have a happy ending.