Mariah Carey Speaks Openly About The Trauma She Has Faced With Her Family

Growing up in a family dynamic where she felt like everything was stacked against her, Mariah’s vocal gift remained her light in the darkness. Her mother Patricia was a vocal coach and opera singer, and by age two, her youngest child easily mimicked her operatic style. Everyone knew Mariah was special, though that wasn’t always a good thing.

Tensions existed before Mariah entered the picture. Patrica’s family cut her off entirely when she married a Black man, aeronautical engineer Alfred Carey. Together they had three children, a son, Morgan, a daughter Allison, and then finally Mariah, who arrived seven years after her sister. They lived in the affluent, mostly white community of Huntington, Long Island, where it was clear they weren't welcome.

As an interracial family, the Careys received threats and were targeted with hate crimes. Neighbors took extreme measures in terror, poisoning the family dog and setting fire to their car. Ultimately, racism was one of the main factors that tore apart the marriage. Three-year-old Mariah went with her mother after the divorce; her suffering was just beginning.

Every part of Mariah’s relationship with her mother was complicated, down to things as simple as caring for her daughter’s hair. Patricia, as a white woman, didn’t learn how to properly care for her biracial child’s hair, so she ignored it. Mariah’s lighter color hair also made her the target of negative comments from other members of the family. She felt completely isolated.

In a 2020 interview with Oprah Winfrey for her series The Oprah Conversations, Carey explained “I would say the neglect was on several levels. I always felt dirty, I didn't feel put together, and [she was] leaving me with people who were not safe." Not belonging was a running theme for the young singer, and those feelings were echoed in her sibling relationships.

“We don’t even really know each other … we didn’t grow up together, but we did. Like, they were on their journeys, by the time I got into the world, they had already been damaged, in my opinion,” Mariah said of her siblings in the Oprah interview. The age gap divided them and, of course, her singing talents led to jealous hostilities.

Mariah explained that her siblings have a skewed view of her experience, "They just grew up with the experience of living with a Black father and a white mother together as a family and I was for the most part living with my mother, which they saw as easier, but in reality it was not," she told Oprah. The resentments manifested into cruel treatment.

In her book, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, she opened up about the parts of her past that she's never publicly acknowledged. “When I was 12 years old, my sister drugged me with valium, offered me a pinky nail full of cocaine, inflicted me with third-degree burns, and tried to sell me out to a pimp," she wrote, and their dynamic only worsened from there.

Despite the instability she experienced at home, Mariah chased her dream. Her five-range vocal octave and whistle tone made her talent impossible to ignore. In her teens, she often missed school to record demos at local studios, spending her alone time writing songs and fantasizing about her future.

"I realized, one day when I grow up, and I do what I'm dreaming of doing, which will happen, and I won't be in these sad circumstances forever, but one day I'm just going to remember what this feels like," Carey told Oprah. That break finally happened for Mariah when she graduated high school and moved to New York City.

One fateful night, Mariah and her friend, fellow singer Brenda K. Starr, attended a party hosted by CBS Records, where they hoped to make important connections. Mariah managed to pass her demo tape along to the President of Sony Music, Tommy Mottola, and as he listened to it on his ride home, he knew he’d found a star.

After that, the singer’s life was never the same. Mottola tracked her down and she started making her debut album Mariah Carey. She was an instant hitmaker, and still holds the world record as the only artist to have all of her first five singles reach the number-one Billboard spot. Yet, her life was still heaped in toxicity.

Mariah's success instantly shifted her family dynamics. "There's been a huge role reversal in our relationship since the beginning since I first started [singing] I've been the go-to, that matriarch person, even as the youngest child in the family," she explained to Oprah. The pressure to take care of everyone coupled with the envy that came along with it nearly broke her.

Navigating her family relationships was just one layer of Mariah Carey’s day-to-day. At 23 years old, just three years after her debut album skyrocketed her to fame, Mariah married the head of her record label — Tommy Mottola. Their relationship, with Mottola 20 years her senior, was less of a partnership and more a crushing exercise in control.

In her book, Carey revealed her nickname for the mansion she shared with Mottola, which she ironically referred to as “Sing Sing" — a play on the name of the maximum-security prison and her own musical prowess. While they are on good terms today and both acknowledge their own roles in the failures of their marriage, after five years Mariah had to break free.

Another secret spilled in her book was the high-profile affair she had towards the end of her marriage that resulted in two iconic hits. Both of the ballads “My All” and “The Roof” were written about her relationship with baseball player Derek Jeter. While their love didn’t last, and she still had more pain ahead, she walked away with great memories and even better music.

Music is how Mariah copes, but it's also her means of celebration, particularly during the holidays. The hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is the unofficial anthem of every holiday season and for good reason. Not only is it a great song, but it encompasses the small moments of joy that mattered to the singer so much as a child.

Still, there were some struggles that even music couldn’t heal. After finally getting control of her own artistic vision, writing songs that explored her sexuality, and adopting more of an R&B sound, it seemed like Mariah’s career was finally heading in the direction she wanted. But the platinum artist was edging towards her breaking point. 

In 2001, right before the release of her film and accompanying album Glitter, the stress left Carey overwhelmed. She retreated to her mother’s house on Long Island hoping to recoup, though ultimately, it ended with a breakdown while washing the dishes. Subsequently, her mother called the police, and Mariah was whisked away to a mental health facility.

Rumors and headlines swirled about the situation, but it was far deeper than just another pop star with underlying issues. To Carey, it was one of the most defining moments of her life. While she was experiencing mental health problems, there was nuance to her pain. She felt an instantaneous power shift when her mother spoke to the police, and all of it was too much to bear.

The episode left Carey with clarity and a diagnosis she hid for nearly 20 years — bipolar II disorder. She got therapy, started medication, and made decisions about the dynamics of her family. Today, Mariah refers to her siblings as "ex-brother" and "ex-sister" and calls her mother Patricia, decisions she explained in her Oprah interview.

"When there are people that are connected to you as a person that achieves a certain level of success, you are a target, you're vulnerable. But I wouldn't have gone here if things hadn't been done to me. If I hadn't been dragged by certain people and treated as an ATM with a wig on," Carey explained. She had to step away from her family.

Carey told Oprah that she will always take care of her mother, but parenting twins Moroccan and Monroe highlights the nurturing she didn’t receive. The feeling she felt growing up, “of when a storm is about to happen ... it's a scary thing but you sense it and you learn to navigate your behavior because of it," said the star, is something her own children won’t experience.

The introduction of The Meaning of Mariah Carey reads, "I offer this book in large part to finally emancipate that scared little girl inside of me. It's time to give her a voice, to let her tell her story exactly as she experienced it." Pouring her truth onto the pages released years of pent-up feelings that several of her popstar peers must relate to.

Carey’s ability to recover from the dark moments, namely when she was lumped into the category of suffering a physical and mental breakdown, shaped how she was able to proceed with the rest of her life and career. Popstar Britney Spears endured the same experience in 2008 when her mental health was the top story of pretty much every entertainment outlet that existed.

Britney was taken to court in 2008 after having a few public breakdowns. (Hey, we don’t judge you, Britney — if we were in the spotlight since age 11, we’d be having mental breakdowns, too). The choices that landed her in front of a judge were clear.

Back in the late 2000’s, Britney was seen driving her SUV with her son sitting on her lap, which attracted a firestorm of controversy from fans and critics alike. But when Britney explained the situation, it quickly drew attention to the behavior of the paparazzi, leading many fans to say that they were going too far.

Britney claimed she had her son in her lap due to a “horrifying, frightful encounter with the paparazzi." But the agency who snapped the photos believe the images “speak for themselves.” This wasn’t the last time paparazzi breached the pop icon’s privacy. 

By 2007, the paparazzi were straight-up stalking the party girl. Bearing the weight of a recent break-up, Britney was out hitting clubs with her new BFF, Paris Hilton. All the partying started to take a toll on her, however, and she ended up checking herself into a rehab clinic. But less than 24 hours later, against her doctors' suggestion, she checked herself out.

When Britney showed up the next day to visit her kids, her husband, Kevin Federline (remember K-Fed?!) teamed up with her mom and manager to lock Britney out of the house, saying she needed to go back to rehab before she could see her children. This lead to… the incident. Yes, you know the one.

Resentful of her family and angry at the people who were eager to see her breakdown, Britney did the honors. She walked into a hair salon in California, picked up a buzzer, and shaved her head for the cameras to see. She also got a tattoo of red lips on her wrist and, from there, the world exploded.

Britney now says the whole thing was cathartic. After all, she did liberate herself from the societal pressures and sexualization that had infiltrated her adolescence. We can clap for that! But as her outbursts grew more aggressive, it became clear this wasn't just a mid-life crisis haircut.

A few days after her shave, the rebellious Britney was seen whacking a photographer’s car with her umbrella at a gas station. This, along with plenty of other Google-able incidents, led to the "Lucky" singer losing custody of her kids. Desperate, she made another unfortunate move.

In response to her custody battle, Britney locked herself and her son, Jayden, in a room that had to be forced into. That's when, against her will, Britney was checked into a psychiatric ward. This left lawyers with a big decision: Britney would have to be placed under a “conservatorship.”

A conservatorship is rare for someone Britney’s age. As with an elderly family member, it would mean someone else would handle of her financial and personal affairs. For Britney's career, that's a big ask. Britney's dad, Jamie, along with a lawyer, became her sole conservators.

Despite making $60 million annually as a bounced-back pop sensation, Britney's spending is recorded down to the cent. “Close friends” say the conservatorship has been good for her, citing that her life is uniquely complicated despite the success of her career. Then 2019 happened.

Just as the conservatorship was up for debate, Britney landed back in a mental health facility. However (and this is the #FreeBritney part), an anonymous source claimed this was all an elaborate hoax, saying that Britney was forced to check herself into the facility to maintain the conservatorship. Conspiracy theorists latched on. Hard.

Other sources say that Britney checked herself into the facility to deal with her father’s declining health. “Don’t believe everything you read and hear,” Britney wrote in a robotic-sounding Instagram post. A few days later, Jamie’s lawyer resigned abruptly and #FreeBritney was trending again. The following statement he released had people very concerned.

The lawyer’s statement said the “conservatorship is engaged in numerous ongoing business activities requiring immediate attention.” He claimed he wanted to resign to save Britney from, “substantial detriment, irreparable harm, and immediate danger.” Ahem… what?

The lawyer maintained to have protected Britney on numerous occasions from drug dealers and destructive friends. An anonymous source on a Britney podcast (yes, those exist) said she was under control by her greedy father, who “forced” her to end her Vegas residency. This part really got to Jamie.

Jamie Spears sued outspoken #FreeBritney advocates, declaring, “Enough is enough.” How did he get the money to sue them? From the $130k salary he gets for being Britney's conservator, of course. Yeah... Jamie wasn’t looking too hot. In a shocking twist, news broke that K-Fed was filing a police report on Jamie!

According to K-Fed, Jamie “violently shook” his 13-year-old grandson after breaking down a door to see him. Like daughter, like father, huh? Both grandsons were granted restraining orders against their granddad, making the death of Jamie's public image official. He stepped down as Britney's conservator and out of the public eye. But what about Britney?!

Britney’s care manager has been placed in charge of her affairs… for now. A court hearing was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, so Britney’s surveillance was continuing “until further notice.” Members of the conservatorship, who are seeking to push Britney’s restrictions to more states, have been met with hate and death threats.

Even Lynne Spears, Britney’s mother, has showed signs of her support for the #FreeBritney movement online, but she hasn’t spoken out directly. Other stars like Miley Cyrus have voiced concern with no hesitation. Fans wave signs that declare, “Britney isn’t a slave for you!” But are things really that toxic?

For now, we’ll have to wait and see. It sure doesn’t help that Britney was recently in the news for burning down her home gym with a couple of candles. Oops, she wasn’t acquitted again. Girl… we just can’t with you.