by Mariah Carey
Tommy was already the president of Sony Music, so getting my phone number was nothing. He called me and left a message on my answering machine.
Josefin and I made performance art out of goofing around and doing silly voices on that answering machine. I’d come in from the studio at five in the morning, and we’d make these crazy messages. In the one Tommy heard, I was mimicking her Swedish accent: “If this is the super, we need some help here! We have flies in our cats’ tails. There’s no hot water”—followed by hysterical laughter. It was funny to us, but it was also the truth. The conditions in our apartment were pretty gross. We had sticky flypaper hanging from the ceiling and on the walls, which our cats would brush up against. We really didn’t have hot water either; it was a mess. But we were young, giddy girls, and we made a joke out of our circumstances.
The first time Tommy called, he hung up. But he didn’t give up. He called back and this time left a curt and serious-sounding message: “Tommy Mottola. CBS. Sony Records.” He left a number. “Call me back.”
I couldn’t believe it. I immediately called Brenda, who confirmed that indeed, Tommy’s office had called her manager, and he wanted to sign me. This was the first of what would be a strange and fantastical series of Cinderella stories in my life. But I was not swept off my feet, and trust and believe me, Tommy Mottola was no Prince Charming.
PRINCESS. PRISONER.
Once, I was a prisoner
Lost inside myself
With the world surrounding me
—“I Am Free”
Once upon a time, I lived in a very big house named Storybook Manor. And in it were big diamonds and big closets full of the most spectacular gowns and bejeweled slippers. But also within its walls was an inescapable emptiness, bigger than everything else inside, that almost swallowed me whole. This was no place for Cinderella.
If there were a fairy tale that could come close to describing my life, it would be “The Three Little Pigs.” My childhood was a series of fragile, unstable houses, one after the other, where inevitably the Big Bad Wolf, my troubled brother, would huff and puff and blow it all down. I never felt safe. I never was safe. His rage was unpredictable; I never knew when it would come, or who or what it would devour. What I did know was that I was truly on my own, out there in the wild woods of the world. I knew that if I was ever going to find a safe place, I would have to make it myself.
I remember the very first time I ever felt I was in something like a safe place. I was living on my own in New York City, in a one-room studio apartment on the tenth floor with a spectacular view. The building was called Chelsea Court. I loved the name of that building: it had such a regal ring to it. I could see the Empire State Building from my apartment window. My little apartment—the first that was all mine.
I had just gotten my very first artist advance. It was five thousand dollars, which is a number I’ll never forget. Five thousand dollars was more money than I’d ever seen at once, let alone had to call my own and spend as I wished. As soon as I got that advance, I got my own apartment. I could finally pay my own rent! No more living in nooks and crannies, no more sleeping on floors or sharing cramped bathrooms with four or five other girls.
The first thing I did was buy my own new little couch with four stable legs. Sometimes I would just stroke the fabric on the arm of my new little couch as if it were a baby. It was that major for me. I upgraded from a mattress on the floor to my own bed. I had a little kitchen. I had the two cats, Thompkins and Ninja. I had a little peace. I was having a moment, and I felt like I could toss my raspberry beret in the air and do a twirl in the street with my laundry bag—because I had survived. I survived the danger. I survived the hunger. I survived the uncertainty and instability, and now here I was, every day coming closer and closer to my destiny. I was independent in New York City, in my own apartment filled with my own furniture, working on my own album, filled with all of my own songs. I could have my own friends over. It was my first taste of autonomy, and it was divine. But it would not last long.
* * *
In the beginning, Tommy protected me. Even though I was breathing a bit easier, with some early breaks and a clear path to success, the traumas and insecurities of my childhood—and pressure from my brother and other people trying to take advantage of me—were still right at my back, haunting my every move. I never stopped looking over my shoulder. Tommy shielded me from all the people who thought I owed them something or who wanted to use me. That meant Tommy also protected me from my own family.
I was nineteen years old and had already lived a lifetime of chaos, surviving only by my own scrappy determination. Then this powerful man suddenly came along, parting the seas to make room for my dream. He truly believed in me.
With all due respect, Tommy Mottola was just the bitter pill I needed to swallow at a pivotal period in my life. And there is a lot of respect due to him. He was a visionary music executive who fearlessly and ferociously dragged his visions into reality. He believed in me, ruthlessly.
“You’re the most talented person I’ve ever met,” he would say to me. “You can be as big as Michael Jackson.”
I heard music in the way he said that name: Michael. Jackson. Here was a man who had played a large role in advancing the careers of some of the biggest names in the industry, and he saw me sharing the same rare air as the most influential artist and entertainer in modern history. Respect.
And it wasn’t a sales pitch or a cheap come-on. It was real. We didn’t play when it came to the work. My career as an artist was the most important thing to me—it was the only thing. It validated my very existence, and Tommy understood the power of my commitment. I was serious and ambitious. He knew my vocals were unique and strong, but he was most impressed with how I created songs: the structure of my melodies, the music. I became his new star just as he was beginning a huge position at a new label, so he had the influence to clear the runway for my ascension into the sky. He was willing to move heaven and earth to make me successful. I recognized and respected that power. Despite having been around some of the biggest names in the music industry, Tommy told me I was the most talented person he had ever met. He was for real, and I really believed him.
Soon after we met, Tommy started making romantic overtures. At first, they were a bit awkward and adolescent, like sending me expensive Gund teddy bears. Yet his persistent gestures and constant attention also gave me a sense of safety. Tommy had a brazen confidence I had never seen up close. He impressed me, and I saw him as a truly empowered person, which I found very attractive. Underneath the shine, however, I had some inkling that there was a darker energy that came with him—a price to pay for his protection. But at nineteen, I was willing to pay it. For me, Tommy was a potent combination of father figure, Svengali, business partner, confidant, and companion. There was never really a strong sexual or physical attraction there, but at the time, I needed safety and stability—a sense of home—more than I needed a boyfriend. Tommy understood that, and he provided. I gave him my work and my trust. I gave him my conviction and the combination to my moral code.
The relationship was intense and all-encompassing—after all, we already worked together, which was how we spent most of our time. When we weren’t working, we were dining at high-end steakhouses or infamous Italian restaurants or attending industry events together. I was spending less and less time at my Chelsea apartment and began spending most nights with him.
Soon, I felt pressure from Tommy to give up my place, and against my better instincts, I gave in. Little did I know, that relinquishment would mark the beginning of a slow and steady march into captivity. Little did I know, giving in to Tommy’s demands would gradually swallow my privacy and begin to erase my identity.
On weekends, we drove up to Tommy’s farmhouse in Hillsdale, New York, which I eventually “affectionately” came to call “Hillsjail.” On the night I got my first publishing advance, for a million dollars (a million dollars buys a lot of H&H bagels!) Tommy drove us up
the Taconic Parkway and pulled up before a gorgeous piece of land. He stopped the car and told me to get out. I looked at the sprawling expanse, shivering in the autumn breeze—it really was stunning.
“Let’s build a house here!” Tommy proclaimed. I knew what this translated to: this is where we are building our house. I had no idea the scope of what I was getting myself into.
Now, this was no Hillsjail. It was impressive and majestic: fifty acres of fertile green land adjacent to a nature preserve in Bedford, New York. It was sandwiched between properties belonging to Ralph Lauren and a very prominent billionaire, an area guaranteed to be secure. But, as I would soon discover, the concept of security was about to turn on me.
* * *
I hadn’t ever wanted to leave the city, but that’s what we were doing. Outside of the recording studio, I wondered, when would I ever be back in my beloved Manhattan? Certainly, building a new house would be a monumental undertaking, but it did have a strong appeal to me, creatively and emotionally.
After a childhood of being uprooted and plopped into all kinds of precarious living arrangements, I finally had the chance to build my own, from the foundation. I got excited. I got into it.
I insisted on being fully involved in all aspects of the design, and I also insisted on paying half of all the costs. I wanted it to be my house. I had fresh memories of witnessing my mother go through the humiliation of a boyfriend shouting, “Get out of my house!” I told myself that no man would ever do that to me. Ever.
Much of what I learned from my mother and older sister was what I wasn’t going to do when I grew up. I had very little guidance in what to do as a woman, though I’d been forced into adult situations when I was still quite young. Tommy was twenty-one years older than me; he could have been my father. He was also the head of my label. There was no wise woman around me to point out that the power dynamic in our relationship was nowhere near fifty-fifty, so maybe I should think twice about going in fifty-fifty with him on an expensive piece of property. To top it all off, we were not yet married.
But I was young, and I was all the way in with Tommy. I was proud of making my own money (though I had no real concept of money). I’d recently received an enormous royalty check from sales of my debut album, so I thought I was set for life. Building a dream house with Tommy did not seem like a risk. I was selling millions of records by then. But I didn’t know that our dream mansion would come with an unfathomable thirty-million-dollar price tag. And as it turned out, my time in that house with Tommy would end up costing me so much more than money.
I did love the process of building that grand manor in Bedford. It opened up a new area of passion in me. I was finally able to give life to my childhood obsession with old Hollywood movies. Ironically, I was especially influenced by How to Marry a Millionaire, starring Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall, and Marilyn Monroe (of course). The images of palatial arched windows and glamorous, glossy floors were seared into my little-girl imagination. I made sure every room in our house was pristine and spacious, filled with air and sparkling with light. We worked closely with the designers and architects; we went over every detail together. I taught myself a lot about the styles of moldings and tiles. I became an expert in sconces—sconces, dahling! I also learned a lot about materials and would often visit various rock quarries. Though by no stretch do I like a rustic look, I do have a preference for tumbled marble on my kitchen floors. I was very particular and confident about what I liked.
Naïve as I was at the time, I decided I was going to build a great house. I had come from far too little to complain, “Oh, poor me; I have to build a mansion!” I was into it. After all, I sincerely thought I would be with Tommy forever and that the home we would make together would be just as timeless, everlasting, and spectacular as the music we were creating—behind which, of course, I was also the creative force.
And spectacular it was. We even had a ballroom. I was in my early twenties, with my own ballroom! I built a grand closet inspired by Coco Chanel’s closet in her 31 rue Cambon flat in Paris, full of opulent mirrors and a spiral staircase that led to its own shoe section. I had acquired so many shoes through all my photo and video shoots that I had to build entire walls of shelving for them. It was staggering to think that just a few short years before, I had been walking in my mother’s too-small, beat-up shoes, snow pouring in through cracks in the soles. I kept those dismal ankle boots for a while, with the intention to bronze them like baby booties, so I would never forget where I came from (as if that were even an option). In such a short time, I had gone from raggedy hand-me-downs to my own manor, complete with walls custom-built for an entire footwear collection. My faith and my fans blessed me with unimaginable riches. I was immensely grateful. But, despite that huge accomplishment, I had yet to learn that in reality, I’d just provided the design inspiration, and put up half the money, to build my own prison.
* * *
The magnificent compound I built in Bedford was just over ten miles from the village of Ossining, another quaint, wooded Westchester town, home to the most famous maximum-security prison in New York State, and possibly in the country: Sing Sing. A complex of grim stone and brick on 130 acres, landscaped with grand elm trees, Sing Sing sits formidably on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. The roller coaster–like arches of the Tappan Zee Bridge can be seen from the watchtower. In autumn, the views are breathtaking; the trees burn fiery orange, gold, and red.
Sing Sing confines about two thousand human beings. The popular terms for being locked up—being “upstate” or “up the River” or in “the Big House”—were coined at Sing Sing.
No matter how prime the real estate, how grandiose the structure, if it’s designed to monitor movement and contain the human spirit, it will serve only to diminish and demoralize those held inside. None of the irony of my proximity to the infamous prison, nor that of its peculiar name, was lost on me: jokingly, I referred to the Bedford estate as Sing Sing. It was fully staffed with armed guards, security cameras were installed in most rooms, and Tommy was in control.
* * *
While I was building Sing Sing, I thought it would be a healthy idea to have my mother and my nephews, Mike and Shawn, live closer to me. I loved the process of designing and creating a gorgeous home. While I had little freedom at Sing Sing, Tommy did support me buying a house nearby for my mother. It became a big thing for us to talk about, and he eventually understood how important it was to me to try and create something stable for my family. I later found out he secretly had security follow me around whenever I went to look at houses or run errands, but I was grateful for the small window of ignorance.
That child in me, deep down, still dreamed of a family that wasn’t fractured. I had begun to make my career dreams come true, and I thought maybe I could make us a family home—a home base, where everyone was always welcome—and I’d make my mother the head of it. I got excited about the idea of buying a home my mother would love, and I could finally afford to do it in style. Finding the perfect house for her was my new project. Just like I wanted every bit of my house to reflect me, I was determined to put that attention to detail into the house for my mother. I wanted her to love where she was going to live.
We recruited friends of Tommy’s in real estate to help me find a place nearby. They showed me several lovely homes, but I was holding out for the right thing, for her. My taste leaned more Old Hollywood, and hers was more “Old Woodstock.”
After an extensive search within a twenty-minute radius of our estate, we finally rolled up on a deeply wooded property with a house set far back from the road. It wasn’t meticulously manicured, which was typical of that section of upper Westchester; rather, the landscaping was intentionally organic. The six green acres were filled with splendid old oak trees. And the house blended into the nature around it beautifully. The interior was both spacious and cozy, with warm wood tones and soothing light streaming through gracious windows. Once inside, you couldn’t hear or see the outside worl
d.
I had found the only hippie-opera-singer-dream-cabin-in-the-woods in Westchester! It was perfection, and I knew exactly what to do to bring it to life. I took it on like I was an interior designer on one of those makeover shows. I picked out and paid for every piece of brand-new furniture, all the knickknacks and accouterments. I chose every detail, from light fixtures to paint colors, all in “Pat’s palette.” I hung wooden flower boxes outside and filled them with romantic wildflowers. I got photo prints made of her Irish family members and Irish crests, had them mounted and framed, and hung them ascending the wall along the staircase. And I managed to keep it secret from her.
The biggest challenge was getting her piano in without her knowing. I knew it was important that it was her old blond-wood Yamaha upright that would be in the living room, not a shiny new model. Her piano held memories in its keys; it was a symbol because it was a significant, stable object she provided during my turbulent childhood. I made up some story that I was going to get it tuned or something before it went into storage; I even had her sign fake moving documents so it could be taken away without suspicion. Her old piano would be the pièce de résistance in her cabin in the Westchester woods.
One of the details that sold me on the property was a wooden sign that had the words “Cabin in the Woods” carved into it. The sellers didn’t want to part with it, but I fought tooth and nail because I just knew my mother would love it. I got so much joy from making plans, keeping the secret, and working to make everything just so. Growing up, I had always wanted a family house where I wouldn’t be embarrassed to bring my friends. Creating a place where my mother could live comfortably and the whole family could gather was so special—healing, even. It was like preparing a spectacular Christmas for my mother and family.