"Mariah's Heap"

Despite a recent marriage split, Mariah Carey is pretty relaxed these
days.  In fact, so relaxed she likes to do her interviews in bed.

"Whenever I get the chance, I like to rest," she says, as she tosses off
her high heeled black shoes and slips under the covers of the giant bed
that figures centre stage in her Los Angeles hotel suite.

She's wearing little more than a cleavage-hugging short black slip
dress.  "It's Dolce & gabbana," she's quick to inform.

Obvious to the fact she's hours late for the interview, Carey laughs at
one of the many rumors that have dogged her seven year career.

"They think I'm some unapproachable diva who has 50 million bodyguards
around her constantly.   But as you can see, that's really not me," she
says, punching the pillows to get comfortable.

She also laughs at the many tabloid reports since the break-up of her
marriage to Sony boss Tommy Mottola.  She's been romantically linked to
everyone from property magnate Donald Trump to basketball and rap stars.

"It's just funny for me, because I've never been out there in that way,"
she says.  "Now it's like a free for all and they're making me look like
a promiscuous freak."

With the release of her new album, Butterfly, the singer, who has rarely
performed live, is about to embark on her first world tour which begins
in the US in October and should see her in Australia early next year.

Butterfly seems an appropriate title for an artist undergoing her own
metamorphosis.  With an obvious move away from her trademark
glass-breaking shrieks, Carey has collaborated with the cream of the hip
hop producers, such as Puff Daddy and Bone Thuggs and Harmoney, in an
attempt to not only deliver an album that with appeal to her pop
audience but win her some hardcore street cred.

She may be the biggest selling female artist of the 90's, selling over
80 million albums, but she's rarely been a critics' favourite, with her
music often labelled as "Nutrasweet soul".

Her marriage to Mottola, 19 years her senior, earned her the dubious
moniker "Queen of Sony", and reports of preferential treatment often
overshadowed Carey's considerable vocal abilities that span a five
octave range.

Amid rumors that the svengali and his protÈgÈ were words apart not only
in age but lifestyle - the 28-year old Carey preferring all-night vigils
at dance clubs with her black rap friends, Mottola preferring sedate
dinners at their $13 million upstate New York mansion - the two
announced their separation last June just shy of their fourth wedding
anniversary.  Carey scoffs at suggestions the break-up will affect her
career.

"Sure, it's been difficult, but the thing is we have a really good
relationship regardless.  He's a brilliant man and I totally respect
him.  We have a strong friendship and we still have a great working
relationship," she says.  In fact, Carey considers a reconciliation
still possible.

While she's shopping for her won Manhattan apartment, she's always
welcome at the couple's lavish 24 hectare estate and Mottola, whom Carey
describes as "an incredible cook", still offers to cook up her favourite
pasta sauce.

"You never know what may happen in the future," she says softly.  "I
don't believe in closing doors.  Let's say I'm still hopeful we'll be
able to work in out."

Carey was a teenager when she met Mottola, considered the most powerful
man in the music business, at a party.  She handed him a demo tape and
the waitress and sometimes back-up singer was transformed from a life of
near poverty to unbelievable riches and fame.  But insiders speculated
it was Mottola's controlling ways that contributed to the break-up.

Carey says the details of the couple's split are "completely personal"
and she also dismissed that the video to her new single Honey, which
stages the singer as a prisoner in a larger mansion before making her
big for freedom, is seemingly symbolic.

"I got the idea when I was jet skiing in Puerto Rico," she says
definitely.  "It has nothing to do with Tommy.  It's inspired by James
Bond movies."

In the video, Carey pays admirable homage to the Bond girls, spending
most of the video in skimpy swimsuits.  The lithe 173cm singer admits
her fitness routine usually consists of nothing more than a few sit ups
before bedtime.

"I'm pretty lucky, I'm naturally muscular and I can get into shape
pretty quickly," she says.

The video also gave her a taste for acting and she hopes to follow
fellow chart toppers Madonna and Whitney Houston on to the big screen.
She has a movie project, in the works.  "Acting is like intense therapy
for me," she says.

"It's got me in touch with many issues from my childhood and has helped
me through the difficulties of the past few months." The product of an
interracial marriage - her mother was Irish-American and her father
black Venezuelan - Carey says she was lucky to escape the hardships her
older siblings have suffered.

"My parents divorced when I was very young, but my older sister and
brother endured some harsh racism," she says.  Her sister has since led
a dark life of drugs and prostitution and was diagnosed HIV positive
while her brother was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon.

"Because of my ambiguous looks, a lot of people assume I have an easier
time - but racism is more an inward thing for me - a sense of always
feeling different.  I have a song on the album called Outside which is
how I've always felt different," she says.

So while her move to a more black urban sound on her current album may
seem deliberate, for Carey it's also a journey back to her cultural
heritage.  This is really the direction I've always wanted to head.
This is what I really love," she says.  "But I don't want people to
think I've gone completely bonkers.

"The album still has the big ballads.  But, for me, it's a way of
incorporating more of who I really am."