Funny, Mariah Carey's new MTV offering doesn't
look like a home video--too glossy and big-budget
for that. But as for the content...Well, some
insiders charge it's straight outta Casa Mottola,
as in Tommy Mottola, as in Carey's estranged
record-mogul husband.
The clip for Honey, the 27-year-old singer's
latest number-one hit, shows Carey, as femme
fatale Agent M, tied up in a palatial estate while
an Italian mobster from Central Casting (actor
Frank Sivero of Goodfellas) threatens our dear
damsel. (Good news: She escapes on jet skis.)
Shades of the reportedly (by an infamous Vanity
Fair article) Mob-connected Mr. Mottola and the
palatial $10 million estate he built for Carey in
posh Bedford, New York, shortly after their 1993
wedding?
According to Carey, no. According to Mottola?
"Tommy loves the video," a spokesman for the Sony
Music president and chief operating officer has
said. Nevertheless, the word from Mottola's camp
is not quite so benign.
"Everything in the video is 'F--- you, Tommy,' "
producer Walter Afanasieff tells the new edition
of Entertainment Weekly. Afanasieff is a Mottola
loyalist and, until a recent falling out with
Carey, the songbird's longtime producer.
Even a Carey insider told the mag that the video
is the way it is for a purpose: to make the public
feel sorry for her.
Carey, meanwhile, is on the record as saying the
video is "not intended to be a dis to Tommy."
The Carey-Mottola union (or lack thereof) has been
headline fodder from the get-go. The two met in
1988. She was an 18-year-old waitress with a demo
tape; he was a very married 38-year-old
up-and-coming record exec. Soon, she was making
$200 million a year for Sony Records; Mottola was
running Sony Records. They wed in 1993 in a lavish
Princess Diana-style ceremony.
The Bedford estate soon followed and so did
whispers that all was not well within the suburban
palace's grounds. Last December's Vanity Fair
article portrayed an obsessive Mottola keeping his
prized employee a virtual prisoner in a gilded
cage, thwarting her artistic and acting ambitions.
The couple announced their separation in
May--right around the time Carey was rumored to be
dating New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.
(She denies the coupling.)
So, is Honey a metaphor for Carey's declaration
of independence? Is Butterfly, the name of her
new, most urban-oriented album to date, more than
a metaphor--maybe even a statement?
"I'm not trying to be his enemy," Carey says of
Mottola.
Wise move. The two would seem to be stuck with
each other, professionally speaking. Mottola's got
a new five-year contract with Sony; Carey owes the
labels four more albums.
E!ONline, by Joal Ryan, September 23, 1997
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