Pop diva Mariah Carey
becomes
single-minded after
splitting from record
mogul Tommy Mottola
In her Halston micromini,
stiletto heels and cascading honey
curls, Mariah Carey makes a
head-turning entrance at the Sydney
Entertainment Centre. Vamping it up
throughout the show at the beginning of
her current world tour on Feb. 3, the
singer jokes and chats with the audience.
A few years ago, Carey says, she would
not have been allowed to wear such sexy
clothing in public. At a news conference
the next day, she elaborates: "Let's just
say it wouldn't have been worth the
drama to wear that particular ensemble."
These days, Carey is mercifully free of
dramas, not to mention conservative
threads. As the title of her new,
triple-platinum album, Butterfly, implies,
she has metamorphosed into a freer spirit
since separating last spring from her
husband, Tommy Mottola, 49, the
powerful boss of Sony Music
Entertainment. An impoverished teen with
a seven-octave vocal range when
Mottola discovered her 10 years ago
(they were married in June 1993), Carey,
28, is now the reigning Queen of Pop.
The two-time Grammy winner has sold a
reported 80 million albums, and,
according to Billboard, only Elvis and
the Beatles have spent more time at the
top of the magazine's singles chart. On
Feb. 25, at the Grammy Awards in New
York City (CBS, 8 p.m. ET), the diva
will be up for three more golden
gramophones for Butterfly, a hip-hop,
R&B-flavored CD (with guest turns by
producer Sean "Puffy" Combs and rap's
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony). "She used to
sing music that was older than her," says
überproducer Jimmy Jam about the
material she recorded as Mottola's muse.
"Now she's singing music that she loves
and listens to."
The more liberated Carey is also
on display outside the recording studio.
In the video of her No. 1 hit single
"Honey," Carey escapes the clutches of a
wealthy, nattily dressed older man who
bears some resemblance to her wealthy,
nattily dressed, older estranged husband.
If Mottola has been stung by the video's
portrayal, he is not letting on. "There has
always been love and respect in our
relationship, and for me it's still there," he
says. "We have a very, very good
working relationship. I will always be her
biggest fan."
As with most show business couples, of
course, conciliation pays. And since
Carey still owes four albums to Sony --
which, thanks in part to Mottola, has
become one of the most successful
record companies in the world -- they
will remain professionally joined for
years. Carey, in fact, pays tribute on
Butterfly to Mottola, who in turn calls
the album her "best yet."
Such graciousness was in short supply
when Carey moved out of the couple's
$10 million Xanadu mansion (14 baths;
two pizza ovens) in Bedford, N.Y., last
year amid reports that she was seeing
New York Yankees shortstop Derek
Jeter. "Tommy was madly in love with
Mariah, and he was devastated," says
Mottola's longtime friend and fellow
music mogul David Geffen. But, says a
close friend of Carey's, "some of that
love wasn't healthy because it didn't allow
her to grow and change. A man his age
... wanted someone to come home every
night and be with him." Or, as Carey
herself put it recently: "I went out to a
club, and no one had seen me in years,"
she said in Sydney. "Everyone was like,
`Shouldn't you be home hibernating?'"
"I'm just finally able to be who I
am," said Carey partying with
singer Maxwell at the Cheetah
club in Manhattan last September.
But once she and Mottola split (no
divorce proceedings have been
reported), Carey quickly made up for
lost good times by frequenting trendy
Manhattan hangouts, including Justin's, a
soul food restaurant owned by Puffy
Combs, where she flirted and drank
Cristal champagne. She insists her
makeover is not just designer-deep.
"Everyone's like, `Wow, she changed her
image,' " Carey said at the Sydney news
conference. "I'm just doing what I want
to do now."
While she once described her marriage
as a fairy tale "like Cinderella," some
friends say that Mottola was more
Svengali than Prince Charming. "He's
very intense . . . and manipulative," says a
neighbor. Echoes another: "It was like a
father-daughter relationship. He was very
smothering. I used to see her driving her
Mercedes convertible with a baseball cap
on. It was the only time she could be
alone -- in her car." But an associate of
Mottola's laughs at that assertion. "The
idea of her playing the innocent who has
broken away from the controlling
husband is bulls--t," he says. "She was no
innocent." The portrayal of Carey as the
prisoner of Bedford especially rankles
Mottola, another associate says: "It's the
biggest crock he's ever heard. Mariah is
a strong-willed, intelligent, talented
woman. She came and went as she
pleased." In that, Mottola has a surprising
ally. Patricia Carey, Mariah's mother,
disputes that her son-in-law was overly
possessive. "I did not see that," she says.
Mottola himself says only that
Carey "is an extremely intense, sharp
personality, and so am I. Put us together,
sparks can fly." But he has confided to
friends that he believes the pressures of
sudden stardom proved too much for
Carey, the youngest of three children of
Patricia and Alfred, a Venezuela-born
engineer. A former singer with the New
York City Opera, Carey's mom
frequently changed jobs and addresses
while raising Mariah, who was 3 when
her parents split. "Here was a girl from
Long Island," says a friend of Mottola's,
"thrust into a world completely foreign to
her. The pressure just built up inside her."
In the wake of the split, Carey is not the
only one who seems to be thriving.
Mottola has begun dating Maureen
Reidy, 28, president of the Miss Universe
pageant. The couple were introduced by
Mottola's pal, pageant co-owner Donald
Trump. "They hit it off," says Trump.
"They're doing well."
As for Carey, "she's very happy, healthy
and strong," says her close friend, video
director Diane Martel. And while the
singer denies that she's involved with
anyone at the moment, she was
reportedly on the guest list as Jeter's date
for a recent party at the St. Petersburg
home of Florida Marlin outfielder Gary
Sheffield. But one of Carey's main
preoccupations, says Martel, is her
forthcoming starring role as a '70s soul
singer in the TriStar film tentatively titled
All That Glitters. Carey, who has been
studying with an acting coach, will begin
work on the film as soon as her tour
ends. As an actress, says Carey's friend,
choreographer-producer Debbie Allen,
"she's a natural." Adds Allen, who helped
Carey choreograph her stage act: "She's
growing. Butterfly is such a right name for
her. She's come out of her cocoon, and
she's spreading those wings. She's
blossoming into the woman she's
becoming."
People Magazine, Feb 3/98; -- STEVE DOUGHERTY
-- JENNIFER LONGLEY in Bedford,
SUE MILLER, MARISA SANDORA
and REBECCA DAMERON in New
York City, KARINA MACHADO in
Sydney, ULRICA WIHLBORG in Los
Angeles and DON SIDER in Miami
Return to Mariah Carey articles
Looking In at Mariah
Get your own Free Home Page