The diva life did not choose Mariah Carey; Mariah Carey chose the diva life.
“There are things people are not aware of because this whole quote-unquote ‘diva’ thing is always what people see first,” the five-time Grammy winner, 52, told W Magazine in a phone call interview published Friday — a conversation she had while taking a bubble bath.
“Yes, I play into it. And yes, part of that is real. I can’t help it,” she explained. “Like, what do you do if you grew up with an opera singer for a mother, who went to Juilliard and made her debut at Lincoln Center?”
Patricia Carey — who is white — performed with the New York City Opera. Alfred Roy Carey — who was black and Hispanic — was an aeronautical engineer.
According to their superstar daughter, the prima donna persona is partly an “affectation” and partly “a response” to her upbringing.
Mariah recalled feeling “othered” as a biracial girl growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood in New York and described her childhood as “extremely dysfunctional … to the point where it’s shocking that [she] made it out of that at all.”
She added that she “grew up with an opera singer for a mother, who went to Juilliard and made her debut at Lincoln Center.”Getty ImagesThe musical icon — who brought the spirit of her favorite holiday to this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while decked out in a tiara and ballgown — said the Christmases she spent as a kid were far from idyllic.
“People think I had this princess-style life or whatever, a kind of fairy-tale existence where I just emerged, like, ‘Here I am!’ And that is not what it is,” she told the mag.
“But when you grow up with a messed-up life and then you’re able to have this transformation where you can make your life what you want it to be? That is joy for me,” she explained. “That’s why I want my kids to have everything they can have.”
Carey recently published a children’s book titled “The Christmas Princess.”GC ImagesMariah — whose 11-year-old twins, Moroccan and Monroe, stole the show during her “All I Want For Christmas” performance Thursday — channeled those desires into a children’s book about a young girl named Little Mariah. It’s called “The Christmas Princess.”
“Not because I think I’m a Christmas princess or any of those things that I’ve never called myself,” she made sure to note of the book’s title, comically disregarding her recently denied bid to trademark the name “Queen of Christmas.”
Of giving the book’s star the name Little Mariah, the singer-songwriter explained, “We’re talking about a little girl who rises above her circumstances and ends up helping other people through music.”
