Mariah Carey shared that her ex-husband, former Columbia Records music executive Tommy Mottola, did not want her to sing R&B.
Speaking with Harper’s Bazaar UK, Carey spoke on her relationship with Mottola, who was 20 years her senior, and how he sought to keep her away from the R&B sound of the day.
“I wanted to do more R&B, more urban music, and any time I would bring that up, it would get shot down,” Carey explained. “It wasn’t that I didn’t like the music I was making – I just felt there was more inside me that I wanted to release.
Eventually, Carey and Mottola separated in 1997. The same year, she released her critically acclaimed LP Butterfly because Carey “felt free for the first time.
“Sometimes I feel angry about that time, but I think I’ve made peace with it – in any case, I vowed I’d stop talking about it,” she said.
Almost 30 years later, Caryey attempts to put a “light-hearted spin on” that dark time in her life.
“Humor is my release, and people who know me know that. I’ll make little jokes about what happened because otherwise I could make every day a sob story. It’s a coping mechanism, but it’s in my nature to laugh.”
On Sept. 26, Carey will release her 16th studio album, Here For It All. Along with her new music, Carye is also planning to release a documentary about her life and a scripted series adapted from her bestselling memoir.
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