Tommy Mottola, the man who signed her on, and gave her the platform to be a big star was always responsible for making her feel deep sadness.
There are times when even the most hardened person is shaken by the struggles faced by one person. The tragic life the person lived shakes people up and shows them that what they have got is good. And, when it's the story of someone rich and famous, it becomes clearer that we know nothing about who they are inside and what they have overcome in life to get to the position they are in.
Once the top-selling woman artist, Mariah Carey has enjoyed fame and riches from a young age. Her family didn't have a lot of money but that didn't stop her from doing well in school.
She started singing from an early age thanks to a voice coach mother and wrote poems too. Through her friend and rising singer Brenda K. Starr, she was able to send her demo to the right place, as per NewIdea. She was only 19 when she sent a demo tape that led Tommy Mottola, an executive at Columbia Records, to sign her in 1988. They went on to marry in 1993 even though he was twenty years her senior, as per Brittanica.
Her life story could have been like Celine Dion, where an older mentor became a romantic partner, but that's not what happened. Instead, her first husband controlled her in many ways. He was her first sexual partner but their union was not fulfilling. He didn't show any physical affection nor did he show any love.
"My relationship with my husband was not a physical relationship. It just wasn't... That relationship shaped who I am. It beyond shaped me. I still have nightmares about it," she said, as per Business Wire.
Unfortunately, this affected her future relationships. She said that she's not had many partners. "I’ve only been with five people in my life, so I’m kind of a prude, honestly, compared to most others in the field," said the Touch My Body singer to Cosmopolitan in 2019. "I haven’t had that many, but there has been a variety pack," the then-49-year-old said.
Mottola's abusive controlling behavior got to a point where she didn't feel comfortable in her own home. She ideated about some extreme ways of escaping her terrible marriage.
"Even though I owned that house, the only thing I felt like I owned was my pocketbook. He (Tommy) didn't even know why I always had my bag with me. But in my mind I thought, 'If something jumps off...I'm ready.' I lived like that for a long time. I used to wish, hope, and dream that someone would kidnap me," according to Business Wire.
Her life felt like a trap and the Always Be My Baby crooner had a hard time finding the strength in herself to leave him. "You might want to picture a child bride,” she told Cosmopolitan, of her time with Mottola.
“There was a conscious effort to keep me as this all-American, whatever that means, girl. It was very controlled. There was no freedom for me as a human being. It was almost like being a prisoner.”
He was the puppet master leading her down a dark road. From forcing her to not mingle with people to seeking his permission to even leave the house, Mottola made her life a living hell.
She had once caller her home "Sing Sing," the maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, according to Billboard. She separated from him in 1997 and divorced him in 1998.
Years later, Mottola wrote a book Hitmaker: The Man and His Music, where he acknowledged that it was "absolutely wrong and inappropriate" to be with Carey. He writes he's "truly sorry for any discomfort or pain that all of my good intentions inevitably caused her, and most of all for the scars it left on my two oldest children" from his first marriage.
However, he maintains that she's been "harsh" in portraying him to the public. He said that the descriptions she had given of him were "untrue" and she is the one who asked him to marry her.
However, it is important to note that he can defend himself very easily because there were no witnesses in that marriage as he kept her isolated. "No one saw me on the honeymoon, running down the beach, miserable, crying and alone," said Carey, as per Business Wire.
References:
https://www.newidea.com.au/young-mariah-carey-childhood-story
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mariah-Carey
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20050322005322/en/Mariah-Carey-Reveals-Details-Marriage-Tommy-Mottola
https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a28137694/mariah-carey-profile-cover-cosmo-interview-sex-shade-memes/
https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1537498/tommy-mottola-on-relationship-with-mariah-carey-absolutely-wrong-and
