Mariah Carey Opens Up Childhood Racism And Trauma She Had To Overcome
Amid the release of her much-anticipated memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter is opening up for the first time about some of her most personal memories and darkest tribulations.
Mariah Carey appeared on CBS This Morning with Gayle King. She discussed the adversity she faced in her childhood that inspired the music that eventually led to her becoming one of the most successful artists of all-time.
“I was just about, for me, emancipating my inner child, the little girl that never felt seen or heard, that wasn’t famous, didn’t have money, didn’t come from means,” she said of her memoir. “There was a lot of unrest in my household, if there was a household and I had difficulty coming from such a dysfunctional family. I just needed to kind of heal myself and heal that inner child that I tried to keep alive through the dysfunction and mess.”
Carey, the youngest of three, was 3-years-old when her parents divorced. She spoke about how she struggled with her race and identity due to her interracial upbringing. The R&B songstress discussed one of the more painful episodes about being racially bullied by classmates at sleepover.
“It was my ‘friends,’ and they were having a sleepover and so they invited me. Mind you, we had to drive to this place, which was like hours away [in] the Hamptons. I was literally stuck there when this incident took place,” she recalled. “They pretty much got me in a room, cornered me, and started using the N-word over and over.”
When King asked Carey whether she felt accepted due to being biracial, the songstress said she felt like an outsider. “I didn’t feel accepted in anyone’s particular world.”
Despite all the hard times she’s experienced, Carey said it was her vision of success that carried her through the hard times.
“I always believed that this would happen,” she said.” I had to feel that I could surpass where I came from and that I could overcome my childhood, dysfunctional family and all the things that happened to me as a kid.”
The Meaning of Mariah Carey arrives on shelves ahead of the legendary songstress’ forthcoming two-disc album, Rarities, set to drop on Friday, Oct. 2. The project will feature unreleased, never-before-heard deep cuts, including a collaboration with Lauryn Hill.
“I found stuff in my vault that I had either started to work on a long time ago and never released or that I wanted to kind of finish mixing,” she said of the release on Good Morning America in August. “There are songs that have previously not been released, so it's exciting. It's a monumental occasion for my career.”
