The Meaning of Mariah Carey

by Mariah Carey

  Brat was from the West Side of Chicago and was clearly mesmerized by the extraness of Sing Sing. There was absolutely no posturing from her; she walked right in the door like, “Dayyyyumm!” I took her on a tour of the house. She never tried to contain her wonder as we ran from room to room. But we were not alone—security was always right there behind us, like a shadow. When we moved, they moved. For the past four years I had been constantly working on such an intense level. I had so many decisions to make, so many people counting on me and looking to me for answers and a payday. If I had any “free” time, I spent it with Tommy or people his age, people on his payroll. I hadn’t had any real fun in such a long time, and Da Brat was a one-woman party.

  I just wanted to have fun, but I knew we were being watched and listened to. There were cameras and recording devices throughout the house. I wasn’t sure where they were all planted—but I knew of at least one place they weren’t.

  Our next stop on the tour was the master bedroom. Brat was so funny; she squealed when she saw the giant television screen rise, as if by a magic trick, from a case at the foot of our elaborate bed. Brat was no girlie girl—she was wearing oversized jeans, a polo shirt, and Timberland boots—but I made a big deal out of showing her my Coco Chanel–inspired closet and insisted she see my massive fancy shoe collection. I knew if I could get her in the shoe room, security wouldn’t see us; I’d designed it and was pretty sure there were no cameras or listening devices among my Manolos. I chatted loudly about stilettoes as I slowly closed the door.

  We sat on the floor of my shoe closet and kicked it for a bit. We were both Aries, both super silly, and both believed in an awesome God. I was having so much fun with Brat, but I knew we couldn’t stay hidden for too long; surely security would get suspicious and expose my one safe room in the house.

  I never knew who was listening, so I whispered to Brat, “Want to go get some french fries?” In any other reality, this would have been a mundane suggestion, but in mine, it was about to be a full-scale caper.

  As we emerged from the closet, I put my finger to my mouth and pointed at the wall, giving her the signal to be quiet and follow my lead. I chirped on about showing her around the rest of the property, then announced that I wanted to quickly show her the cars. We skipped along to the garage. Inside there was a fleet of cars. Several of them were mine, most of which I never drove, in part because I was always being driven. I pointed at the black Mercedes convertible and told Brat to get in quickly. I always kept the keys inside the car, so in a matter of seconds I had the engine going. I threw it into gear, and we whipped around the cul-de-sac, then sped down the driveway and out onto the open road. Suddenly, there I was: flying down the street in my sports car, with my new, cool homegirl, laughing deep and loud in the bright wintery afternoon sun. It was exhilarating. Brat and I had broken out da Big House!

  While we were out playing Black Thelma and Louise, Escape from Alcatraz was not playing so well back at Storybook Manor. I understood that security was necessary, but why was it necessary for them all to be white, with blue eyes and black guns? They were going berserk. Before we got the mile or so down the road to the Burger King, Brat’s phone began to ring. I could hear JD yelling on the other end: “Yo, Brat, get the fuck back here; they going crazy!”

  Brat laughed into the phone and replied, “I ain’t driving; Mariah is!” But JD was clearly upset.

  “This ain’t fucking funny,” he said. “Tommy is bugging out; he got everybody running around looking for y’all; they got guns out and shit!”

  Brat shot back, “Damn, we just going to get french fries, JD! If Mariah wants french fries, we getting fucking french fries!” She abruptly slammed her phone shut, and we proceeded to Burger King.

  For the twenty or so minutes, while Brat and I sat in the car eating those fries and cracking jokes, I reveled in the simple excitement of being young. I’ll never forget it. Jermaine must have called every five minutes, begging us to come back. He went from being angry and annoyed to being nervous to being afraid. Brat was quickly realizing how serious our momentary escape had been. With every ring, she looked at me with increasing concern and sadness. We were really only a mile away, and people were panicking.

  She said something like, “This ain’t right. This is your shit, Mariah. Jermaine, Xscape—we all here because of you. You done sold millions of records, girl. You live in a damn palace. You have everything, but if you can’t be free to go to fucking Burger King when you want, you ain’t got nothing. You need to get out of there.” This time she wasn’t laughing. If Da Brat, a nineteen-year-old female rapper from the West Side, is afraid for you, you know the situation has got to be dire, dahling.

  When we pulled up to the property, there were more than ten security personnel standing outside, preparing two large black SUVs to go on a search. They stopped me before I could get up the driveway to the garage, as if I was a fugitive crossing the border. I was promptly whisked back into the house and back into the studio—back into my tower, my jail.

  JD was visibly shaken. My spontaneous, mischievous little scheme had had real consequences for him. I hadn’t brought my phone, so security had no way of contacting me. There would be hell to pay from Tommy for such sloppy surveillance. While Jermaine was in the studio, concentrating on laying down the beat for the track, security had busted in and interrogated him, with their guns out in broad daylight. I assume they figured that since Jermaine was the producer, Brat was his artist, so he was in charge, he was responsible. They yelled at him: “Where is she? Tell us where she is!” Of course, he had no idea where we were. He was working. He was at my studio. This was the first time he’d been at my house. He was only twenty-three years old.

  After Tommy was assured of my safe return, the situation settled down. Brat rolled a fat blunt, but God knows she couldn’t smoke it around me, so she just held on to it throughout the shoot, like a security blanket, and began to work on her rap for the remix. Her nerves were a bit of a wreck now too. In addition to everything else, she probably felt guilty we had caused such drama while recording her first big rap feature with me. But when the mic was hot and the camera was rolling, Da Brat killed it. Her delivery was happy and hard, playing with clever references and sophisticated rhythms inside the space of the song:

  Who rocks your Music Box

  And breaks down your structure

  You fantasize as you visualize me as your Dreamlover

  Fuck with your Emotions Unplugged in your Daydream

  —“Always Be My Baby (Remix)”

  We got it done: a remix, a video, and a prison break all in one day. You would never know from the video I directed that we were surrounded by armed security. I was a master at editing out the pressure.

  SIDE EFFECTS

  I was a girl, you were “the man”

  I was too young to understand

  I was naïve

  I just believed

  Everything that you told me

  Said you were strong, protecting me

  Then I found out that you were weak

  Keeping me there under your thumb

  ’Cause you were scared that I’d become much

  More than you could handle

  Shining like a chandelier

  That decorated every room

  Inside the private hell we built

  And I dealt with it

  Like a kid I wished I could fly away

  But instead I kept my tears inside

  Because I knew if I started I’d keep crying for the rest of my life with you

  I finally built up the strength to walk away, don’t regret it but I still live with the side effects

  —“Side Effects”

  When Tommy suggested we go to couples therapy, I was surprised. Unsurprisingly, he told me it would have to be with his therapist, who he had been seeing for years. Nevertheless, this was a monumental step for both of us. Our careers, and consequently our marriage, were constantly in the public spotlight. But no on
e had ever been allowed into the dark interior of our relationship. I’d never had anyone to confide in about how I was living—or not living. I had carried the burden of believing that because I was able to write, sing, and produce my songs, become famous, and gain access to unimaginable wealth, I didn’t deserve personal happiness too. I truly believed everything good in my life would cost me, and that Tommy’s control was the price for my success.

  Honestly I was really only trying to gain five minutes of peace—the opportunity to be able to walk down the stairs into my own kitchen to grab a bite to eat without the hiss of the intercom and his menacing “What ya doin’?” buzzing out of it. Also, I didn’t trust anyone—by then I was estranged from my immediate family, and everyone around me was connected to Tommy and scared of him. I knew that anything I said would get back to him, and I would suffer his constant rage.

  I had started to develop hives-like breakouts. I went to see the dermatologist, who assured me that my otherwise unblemished skin was having a reaction to severe stress. It was suggested I make some dietary changes and add a few new cleansing routines to help soothe the symptoms. When I told Tommy the doctor’s diagnosis (it was not good business for your top-selling artist to be hived out), he barked back, “Stress?! Fuck you got to be stressed about?” Lawd, let me count the ways.

  Therapy was a lifesaver. Our therapist was a kind, older Jewish woman with short amber hair and alert eyes. She had a cozy office in her classic Westchester home. I liked her more than I thought I would, as I assumed she would be on “Tommy’s team,” but she was refreshingly impartial and a real pro. And he respected her. (Which was a major thing.) At that point in my life, I didn’t have many relationships with stable, professional adults whose livelihoods weren’t connected to my record sales. There were very few places where I wasn’t overcome with anxiety: first, there had been the recording studio, and now there was the therapist’s office.

  Though even in my “safe” spaces, Tommy’s presence would infect the atmosphere. I would be in the recording studio writing and vibing with producers or other artists, and he would often crash in at 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. to pick me up, as if I was his nine-to-five “office girl” and not a recording artist who had her own creative process, which you couldn’t place on a timer. (Not to mention, who collaborated with various rappers and hip-hop producers, many of whom—like me—don’t recognize time, especially daytime.) As soon as he walked in, tension would eclipse the lightness of creating; all laughing would cease, and we’d all shrink a little to make room for the pressure that accompanied him. And while I can’t say I felt completely safe or equal in the therapist’s office (or anywhere), it was the closest thing we had to a neutral space where Tommy and I could attempt to communicate.

  It was a profound breakthrough for me that she listened to both of us objectively. And she believed me. She had been treating him for years, like Tony Soprano and Jennifer Melfi, except she was more mother figure than sexy scholar. She might have been the only person who had some kind of insight into his psyche and could completely conceive of the repressive and paranoid conditions he imposed on me in our marriage and home life. She was the first to recognize and name the abuse I was living under. I already knew the havoc it was wreaking on my spirit, but she identified the damage it was doing to me emotionally.

  After some of our sessions she would ask Tommy to go sit and wait for me in the car, so that she and I could decompress and speak honestly. Once, during our alone time, I asked her, pleading really, “Why can’t he just let me go to the spa or to the movies, or do anything? I did nothing wrong!”

  She took a pause and said, in her dry, matter-of-fact New York accent, “Sweetie, it’s not normal. Why are you acting as if you’re dealing with a normal situation? It’s not normal!”

  But I had no frame of reference for normal. Our marriage had been a demolition site long before we made it to therapy.

  * * *

  After our eight-year relationship my life had become like a psychological thriller. It had gotten to the point where Tommy’s very presence to me was a hostile occupation. Tiptoeing around and protecting myself was my daily existence. I never thought I would be strong enough to leave Tommy. I thought I would just continue to deal with it. I prayed that he would realize how he was stifling me, and that he would do the work and things would change. Some days I really did just want to be like Peter Pan and fly the fuck away. Mostly I tried to just take whatever shit he was giving, no matter how outrageous, and just hope he would become more lenient. Being married to him really was the equivalent of having a strict father who ruled with fear and controlled everything you did. I kept hoping he would just ease up and give me space to just be, so that we would have a chance. It was our only chance.

  I wrote in Butterfly what I had so hoped Tommy would be able to see, and say, to me:

  Blindly I imagined

  I could keep you under glass

  Now I understand to hold you

  I must open up my hands

  And watch you rise

  Spread your wings and prepare to fly

  For you have become a butterfly

  Oh fly abandonedly into the sun

  If you should return to me

  We truly were meant to be

  So spread your wings and fly

  Butterfly

  Right away Tommy’s therapist advocated for me to have more independence. She supported the idea that I had to create some boundaries for myself and encouraged me to go places on my own. It seemed like a miracle—I’d never had an ally before. She recommended we do things in stages, something like probation. But unlike probation, the purpose was not for me to get reacclimated to society, but to moderate Tommy’s behavior, since he was so extreme. He had control over me as an artist. He had control over my personal life. He had control over everyone in my professional life. And even though I was the biggest artist on the label, he was still the most powerful person in my life, and seemingly everyone’s life. Everyone was scared to death of Tommy—the executives, the management, legal, other artists—everyone.

  After ferocious negotiation with the therapist, we agreed the first step toward independence was that I would finally attend acting classes. For years I had wanted acting training. Songs are like monologues, so I knew I had good raw material and certainly a range of emotions and life experiences to draw from. But I hungered to learn some craft, to explore, develop, and discipline another passion brewing inside me. As with singing, from an early age I was obsessed with films and often memorized lines as an escape. Acting was both a dream and something I felt I needed to do. Tommy “agreed” I would have private acting lessons—unsurprisingly, again, with a coach he knew and approved. Like the therapist, this acting coach was very qualified and worked with incredible, world-class actors.

  The acting coach was an ample woman who seemed to thoroughly enjoy her voluminous breasts and the fleshiness of her body. She moved with abandon. She swished around in layers of Stevie Nicks–esque flowy garments and made grand gestures with her arms, even during casual conversation. She was part earth-mother hippie, part privileged princess, part aspiring guru, and I liked her.

  She taught out of her bohemian-luxe Upper West Side apartment. Like her, the space was eclectic and welcoming. It was filled with the scent of Nag Champa, which impressed me the most because it was immediately soothing, and back then, I was not easily soothed.

  In our first session, she had me lie on a mat on the floor and close my eyes to do some basic deep breathing and relaxation exercises. Sitting in her chair on high, she instructed me to breathe deeply and try to relax. “Relaaaaaaaax.” (Easier said than done, lady.)

  “Close your eyes. Breathe. Breathe.” I was struggling but listening and trying to follow her instruction. “Relax, Mariah. Relax your muscles; breathe and relax your body.” It was then I realized my shoulders were shoved up to my earlobes. Even lying on the floor I was in a tense fight-or-flight stance—mostly fight; I’d been protecting myself
for so very long.

  “Breathe. Breathe. Check in with yourself,” she said calmly. Check in with myself? I didn’t know what that meant.

  Sensing my resistance, she said, “Go to a place where you feel safe.”

  Nothing.

  “Do you have a place where you feel safe, Mariah? Go there. It can be from your childhood.”

  Nothing.

  “Imagine you’re little, you’re six. Go there.”

  I was in the deli house. Not safe.

  “Maybe you’re a little older. Go there.”

  I was back in the shack. Not safe.

  She kept pushing, thinking certainly there had to be a place. “It could be sometime more recent. Just go to a safe place.”

  I was feeling nothing in nowhere. I could only feel the hard floor flat against my back as I searched around in my own emptiness. I was looking for a space in my mind and waiting for a comforting vision to arrive. There was nothing. I was blank. I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. Suddenly I felt cold and alone. It dawned on me that there was nowhere, inside or out, where I felt safe.

  Then the coach asked, “How are you doing, Mariah?” A wave of sadness rushed through me and poured out in a deluge of tears. My entire being was heaving, sobbing; I was unsure if I would ever be able to stop.

  Eventually the storm of tears subsided. I don’t think I had cried openly the entire time I had been in the relationship with Tommy. Crying with him would’ve taken too much cleanup, and the emotional cost was too expensive. He’d surely punish me if I cried. He was the one who cried during some of our more explosive fights. And I would end up consoling him, completely abandoning my needs, my pain. It was ruthlessly manipulative.