by Mariah Carey
I was conditioned to either talk shop or go silent on our bleak commute. Mostly, though, I just stared out the window at the grand Hudson River, preparing for my first major role: contented wife-to-be. This was the only acting job Tommy ever encouraged. Taking acting classes or accepting roles in movies or on TV was strictly forbidden.
On the ride back from Schenectady, I don’t recall Tommy and me discussing what had just happened. Perhaps he knew that I saw the purity and power of the fans—that I’d discovered how their love couldn’t be controlled. It is fans who create a phenomenon, not record-company executives. Tommy was smart. He knew. But I don’t know if he realized that after that moment, I finally did too.
We arrived at the farmhouse, and all I wanted to do was take a bath. Being a performer is a production. You build up and put on, you strategize, manipulate, accommodate, and shape-shift. It requires rituals (sometimes in the form of bad habits) to return yourself back to yourself. My ritual was to wash the performer off. The addition of a large tub facing an expansive picture window was one of the few contributions I got to make to Hillsjail. The bathroom was my refuge, since putting a camera or intercom in there would’ve been a bit much, even for Tommy. The cool marble tile sent a soothing sensation through my bare feet, which had been hoisted up in heels all night. I lazily peeled off my ensemble, thankful that the sound of the water running was the only one I heard. I lowered the overhead lights and ceremoniously lit a few white candles. The water was welcoming, and I surrendered. As if being baptized, I submerged my head and lingered in the warm, dark quiet. I gently rose up, tilted my head back, and propped my arms along the edge of the massive basin, eyelids still shut, savoring every moment of this calm solitude. Slowly I opened my eyes to a radiant full moon, glowing against a clear, blue-black sky. Softly I began to sing: “Da, da, da, da, da…”
Images of the scene I had just left—adoring fans screaming and crying—flashed through my mind, blending with painful recollections of my brother screaming and my mother crying, of myself as a lonely little girl in a neglected dress. I was floating in a tub that was larger than the size of my entire living area just five years before, in a room bigger than all of the living rooms in all of the thirteen places I lived with my mother growing up. The enormity, complexity, and instability of the road I had traveled to get into this bath hit me. It was the first time I felt safe enough to go back and peek in on Mariah, the little one, and recognize what she had survived. And suddenly, the first verse and chorus of “Close My Eyes” came to me:
I was a wayward child
With the weight of the world
That I held deep inside.
Life was a winding road
And I learned many things
Little ones shouldn’t know
But I closed my eyes
Steadied my feet on the ground
Raised my head to the sky
And the times rolled by
Still I feel like a child
As I look at the moon
Maybe I grew up
A little too soon.
It would take me years to finish this song—years of anguish and survival.
MY BIG FAT SONY WEDDING (AND LITTLE SKINNY HONEYMOON)
To announce our engagement, Tommy and I took my mother to a swanky dinner in midtown Manhattan. As we walked outside after the meal, the city was all dressed up in its evening wear of bright lights and flashing billboards, and I showed her the engagement ring, a Cartier tricolor gold band with an immaculate, modest-sized diamond. It was understated, but it was also Cartier. My mother looked at the delicate, dazzling ring on my slender (and very young) finger and quietly said, “You deserve it.”
That was it. She got into the limo I had waiting for her and rode away. I never really knew what she meant by that. But that was all that was left between us. There was no womanly advice or girlish giggles—which, honestly, I didn’t expect, but I did think the occasion called for more than a one-liner.
Many reasonable people have questioned why I married Tommy. But none of them questioned the decision more than I did. I knew I would lose more power as a person, and I was already completely suffocating emotionally in the relationship. We were equally yoked to each other through the music and the business. However, the personal power dynamic between us was never equal. He convinced me that everything would be better if we were married, that things would be different. But what I really hoped was that he would be different—that if I gave him this thing he so adamantly wanted, this marriage that I believed he thought would legitimize him, or quell chatter about him having an affair with an artist on the label, it would change him. I was never completely sure why he wanted to get married so badly. I prayed that in doing so he would calm down and loosen his vise grip on my life. I hoped maybe he would trust his “wife” and let her breathe.
I was in my early twenties, just a few years removed from the shack, and the concept of a life that included both personal and professional fulfillment was unfathomable to me. I truly believed that I was not worthy of both happiness and success. I was accustomed to making all my life choices based on survival.
Back then, I didn’t choose what glamorous outfit to wear each morning; I chose what survival mechanism I needed to arm myself with that day. More than my personal happiness, I needed my career as an artist to survive. Happiness was secondary. Happiness was a fleeting bonus. I married Tommy because I thought it was the only way for me to survive in that relationship. I saw the power he could put behind my music, and he saw the power my music could give him. Our holy matrimony was built on creativity and vulnerability. I respected Tommy as a partner. If only he had known how to give me the respect I was due as a human being.
* * *
At the first real wedding I ever attended I was the bride. I never dreamed of getting married when I was young. I hadn’t really wanted to. In high school, girls fantasized about big, poofy dresses and Long Island weddings while I visualized a dream of becoming a successful musician and actress. That’s all I cared about, so it was pretty ironic that I ended up having one of the decade’s most lavish New York weddings in one of the decade’s most dramatic, voluminous gowns.
Apart from the ambition, Tommy and I were completely different, and the Black part of myself caused him confusion. From the moment Tommy signed me, he tried to wash the “urban” (translation: Black) off of me. And it was no different when it came to the music. The songs on my very first demo, which would become my first smash album, were much more soulful, raw, and modern in their original state. Just as he did with my appearance, Tommy smoothed out the songs for Sony, trying to make them more general, more “universal,” more ambiguous. I always felt like he wanted to convert me into what he understood—a “mainstream” (meaning white) artist. For instance, he never wanted me to wear my hair straight. I think to him it didn’t look naturally straight, it looked straightened. He thought it made me look too “urban” (translation: Black) or R & B, like Faith Evans. Instead, he insisted that I always wear my loose and bouncy curls, which I think he thought made me look almost like an Italian girl (though, ironically, my curls are a direct result of my Black DNA, assisted by a good small-barrel curling wand to integrate the frizz).
My curls had certainly crisscrossed with Italian culture before I met Tommy. (I did live in more than a dozen places on Long Island.) In the eleventh grade I attended a beauty tech school. I was there mostly to kill time before I became a star (my only career goal). It was more creative, entertaining, and practical than regular high school. I’d always struggled with pulling a cohesive look together—there weren’t any of the tools or potions at home for me to play with, and I certainly didn’t have a consistent crew of girls to go through the passage from girl to teen with. There was a real allure to gaining more refined beauty skills. Also, I was a huge fan of the musical film Grease growing up; I thought I could have my own Pink Ladies moment. And I kinda did.
My beauty school class was made up of mostly Italian girl
s. There were mean girls, there were shy girls, there were regular girls, and then there were the girls. They were a clique of about three or four fabulous ones, who comparatively, of all the girls I’d ever seen on Long Island, were the most glamorous—or rather, they seemed to be having the most fun with it. But they were so serious about their look.
Subtlety, to these girls, was a waste of time and flavor. They were terminally tanned. Their heavily highlighted hair was coiffed within an inch of its life, every ringlet, puff, and bang sprayed into obedience. Their makeup was bright, flashy, and perfectly applied. They wore their fingernails long and did. Some even had nail art: a line of tiny gold studs, or their initials in crystals on a perfect, thick, bright white “French”—major.
We all had to wear a uniform of a drab maroon button-up smock with white pants and hideous, chunky white nurse shoes. But these girls would not have their flamboyance hidden. They wore their smocks open, revealing the leggings and boys’ ribbed white tank tops with fancy, lacy bras they featured underneath. And, of course, there was the jewelry: thick and thin gold link chains in flat, herringbone, and rope styles with Italian horns, crosses, and initial pendants dangling from them layered on their necks, hoops in their ears, and delicate gold and diamond rings on every finger.
They were so adult to me. They were obviously already having sex—obviously not only because they carried their bodies in a particular way but because they let everybody know it. They talked easily and openly about sex (which was secretly shocking to me). They called themselves “Guidettes,” and I had no idea what that meant, but I thought it was cool they had a name, like a singing group or something.
They would roll up to the beauty school in flashy cars, bumping WBLS, the urban dance radio station—ooh, if they only knew we called it the “Black Liberation Station”—loud. And of course I knew every song, and I would sing them—like Jocelyn Brown’s “Somebody Else’s Guy” (I quite enjoyed laying into the big, slow vocals at the beginning) or “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin On But the Rent” by Gwen Guthrie. The girls loved it, and my teacher hated it, because I was always singing, blowing out notes rather than doing blowouts.
It was my singing and constant popping of jokes that won these flashy teen princesses over, because I was from another school, and I hadn’t formed my own confident look—I was not quite cool clique material. We did manage to do each other’s hair. Surprisingly, no one ever questioned me about my mixed texture, the thickness (or thinness) of my lips, or any of my features. I learned a lot from those girls. They helped me bring more volume and energy to my hair and more gloss to my lips.
We had more in common than one would imagine. There’s always been an underground relationship between hip-hop and the mob in pop culture. We especially loved the style and swag of movies like The Godfather and Scarface. Later, I re-created the hot tub scene with Jay-Z for the “Heartbreaker” video. That video will always be one of my favorites. I enjoyed paying homage to Elvira, Michelle Pfeiffer’s character, the tortured and trapped wife, who had a spectacular home and sexy designer clothes (I could relate).
Though I did try, it turned out that I was bound to be a beauty school dropout. Most of the girls in my class were really focused and had talent for the field. They were destined to do hair. Thankfully, I had another sweet destiny waiting for me, because I certainly would never be crowned queen of finger waves.
I could have never imagined just a few years after my five hundred hours with the Guidettes, I’d be at the altar with one of the most powerful men in the music industry—an Italian, no less. I hadn’t been looking for anyone romantically. I certainly wasn’t looking for a husband. And I most definitely wasn’t looking to marry Tommy, but it happened anyway. And what a happening it was. Once I said yes to the marriage, I thought, Hey, we might as well make it an event—an EXTRAVAGANZA! As with any project or production I’m involved with, I wanted to bring as much optimism and festiveness to it as possible. Tommy was also enthusiastic about the potential pomp and circumstance we could create. He focused on curating the most influential and impressive audience—I mean, guest list—he could.
Clearly, there was no family or mother of the bride running the show here. Lord knows this task was way beyond anything my mother could ever comprehend. Besides, this wedding was designed to be an entertainment-industry spectacle; even a capable mother or sister couldn’t manage the production we were going to put on. The wife of one of Tommy’s colleagues, who was a socially well-connected middle-aged woman, was given the role of production coordinator. She helped me with all the major details, such as the dress.
That dress was an event unto itself. My coordinator was friends with one of the most prominent female fashion designers of the era, whose specialty was bridal. It seemed like I spent as much time in her showroom for fittings as I did in the studio for an entire album. There were at least ten fittings—crazy for a girl who, not so long before, had only had three shirts in rotation.
Of course, I was inspired by Princess Diana. Who wasn’t? She was an inspiring figure! I loved that wedding, and really it was my only reference point for how a wedding should look. I didn’t grow up looking at bridal magazines, and besides, the royals know how to throw a good wedding—obviously. In the end, nearly every princess element or symbol imaginable could be found in that dress. The crème silk fabric was so fine, it seemed to glow. The sweetheart neckline swooped gracefully off the shoulder before blooming into exaggerated poof sleeves. The structured bodice was intricately encrusted with crystals and beads exploding into an enormous ball gown skirt, kept afloat by layers upon layers of crinolines. But the most notable feature was the ultra-dramatic twenty-seven-foot train, which required its own team of handlers. Affixed to a diamond tiara was an equally long veil. Syd Curry twirled my curls to tumble down like Rapunzel’s, and Billy B did my face, serving up both glamorous ingenue and Belle of the Ball. I had come a long way from Cinderella of the Shack. The bouquet was unforgettable: a cascade of roses and orchids, studded with various all-white blossoms romantically tangled with vines of ivy. A small troupe of little girls threw white petals at my feet.
Tommy did not disappoint on his assignment either—the casting was impressive. The guest list included heavy hitters from Barbra Streisand to Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley—even Ozzy Osbourne and Dick Clark! To top it all off, his best man was Robert De Niro! Though my bridesmaids included my longtime and trusted friends Josefin and Clarissa, they brought me no comfort. No one could. I was deathly afraid.
I hardly remember the ceremony at the majestic Saint Thomas Church (we needed a venue that could accommodate the drama of the dress, after all).
I remember our song was “You and I (We Can Conquer the World)” by Stevie Wonder, because I chose it, of course. I recall my face shaking involuntarily at the altar. But the moment those church doors opened up onto Fifth Avenue, I heard the roar of screams and saw the hordes of fans flooding every inch of sidewalk as far as the eye could see, camera flashes popping like fireworks. I walked down the stairs and smiled at them. For me, my wedding wasn’t for all those rich and famous people I barely knew. It wasn’t for my distant, dysfunctional family (though I do fondly remember my grandfather, by then in the grips of dementia, lovingly yelling my name like he was on the block: “Mariah! Mariah!”) To me, the wedding spectacle was mostly for the fans, and we gave them the fabulous moment they deserved.
There was a star-studded reception at the Metropolitan Club (I liked the venue because it had “MC” monogrammed everywhere, but we didn’t mention that to TM) that I barely remember. I was exhausted. It had taken so much energy just to plan the thing and then get through it.
The night before I’d had a girls-only sleepover at the Mark Hotel. I was clearly conflicted. My friends knew I didn’t even really believe in the institution of marriage, and yet here I was about to put on this major show with a man who was already showing dangerous signs, professionally and personally. He would become my next of k
in; the stifling hot mess of a relationship that I was already in with him would only become more foul and imbalanced.
“You don’t have to do this,” they all said. But I truly believed I had to. I saw no way out. I didn’t know what else to do. I’d learned how to endure disappointment and carry on, to make the best of things and keep working. I certainly knew how to live with fear. I didn’t know life without fear.
Tommy and I pulled off the wedding. The next day we flew to Hawaii. I can’t, in good conscience, refer to what we did as a “honeymoon.” It was not sweet. It was not dreamy. At. All. We were staying at someone’s house, which was already pretty lackluster. I didn’t really care that much, since my relationship with Tommy was never about romance, but still, it was technically my “honey moon-ish” …
Thankfully, the house was on the beach, and being near the ocean is always a comfort to me. The next day I had gone to the bathroom to change into a swimsuit when I heard Tommy ranting on speakerphone. I could tell he was arguing. Great.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. He was on the phone with his very high-powered publicist, who was going ballistic, screaming and cursing because he didn’t want our wedding photos on the cover of People, as we’d planned. The publicist was telling Tommy that it wasn’t appropriate for his executive image. His image? I mean, why go through all of that grandiosity for some little corner picture, as the publicist was urging? I shared this opinion with him and Tommy. The publicist exploded.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” he yelled at me.