The Meaning of Mariah Carey

by Mariah Carey

  This was all happening before the phenomenon of social media. There was no clapping back on Twitter. No “Drag them, Queen!” No organic love mob of the fiercely loyal Lambily to rush to my defense. Thousands of fans and Lambs did show me love and support through letters and comments on my website, but the “outside” world didn’t take note of that. There was no YouTube and no ’gram. (Although a surprising ally also rose to my defense: Suge Knight (who was so powerful then), in an interview on Hot 97, said, “Everybody needs to leave Mariah alone, or they’re going to have a problem with me.” Trust, back then nobody wanted to have a problem with Suge.

  Today it’s easy to coordinate a promo moment or change the narrative through social media. It was freaking hard to penetrate pop culture back then. It was a huge undertaking to get on major TV shows and devise my own “moments”; practically every move you made as an artist was controlled by the “corporate morgue” (as I lovingly call them). Now, when some celebrity mishap goes viral, there’s generally a twenty-four-hour media takeover; then it’s over. Back then, you did one thing, and it dominated the press for what seemed like an eternity. TRL was that one thing.

  * * *

  And the press hunted me, ferociously. This was five years after Princess Diana’s death by tabloid. I studied how the press hounded her like hyenas. I once had a brief but unforgettable moment with Lady Di when our eyes locked at a Vogue party. She was in a stunning sapphire-colored gown, neck dripping in the same blue gems. And she had that look—the dull terror of never being left alone burning behind her eyes. We were both like cornered animals in couture. I completely recognized and identified with her. We shared that understanding of how it felt always being surrounded by people, all of whom might not be trying to hurt you, but all of whom are trying to do something. They all want something. I didn’t know she would be caught and killed shortly after our encounter. I certainly didn’t know I would soon be in a dangerously similar position. The hunters were closing in.

  With the August heat, my troubled sleep quickly deteriorated into no sleep at all. Sleep had disappeared, as had proper meals. I was barely eating. The panic around “Loverboy” at the label was real, and they were desperate to make another video for the second single right away. We had just spent several exhausting days shooting the “Loverboy” video in the scorching California desert, in harsh conditions, with no water or basic necessities. There had been no covered area to wait in and block me from the sun between takes, which not only fried me, it wasted time, because my makeup kept melting and had to be reapplied. I may have looked super peppy, but “Loverboy” was a technically grueling shoot, and the label wanted me to get on a plane right away, fly back to New York, and start shooting another video for “Never Too Far” the following day!

  I was utterly exhausted, baked, fried, and frayed, and certainly wasn’t in any condition to make another video. I should have had, at the very least, a three- or four-day buffer between shoots. Besides, there was a whole glamorous performance of the song in the film, which they could’ve and should’ve used as a video (ultimately they did). But the label wasn’t hearing me.

  It didn’t matter that I was completely spent—what mattered was that they had spent more than a hundred million dollars on “Mariah Carey.” They wanted all their glittery products ready for sale now. There was no one around to intervene, to help coach the label on how to pace the projects and my productivity. No one had the strength or power to say no to unreasonable requests on my behalf, and the pressure was steadily rising. I was exhausted. And the most difficult part was the diabolical delight the tabloid media was milking out of my moment of weakness. It was a nonstop, never-ending circus. I recall watching one entertainment show after the TRL debacle where they were talking about me in the past tense. It was so surreal, as if I was watching an “In Memoriam” of Mariah Carey. And all I really wanted was to rest in peace.

  This, on top of dealing with Tommy and my family, was just too much. I was beyond tired. I was in urgent need of sleep. Sleep, this basic human requirement, this simple comfort, became impossible to obtain. I tried to find refuge in the emptiness of my enormous new penthouse, but the label and “management” were calling me constantly, trying to convince me to do the video. I simply couldn’t do it. I had been working for years without a break. It was totally out of the norm for me not to show up, but I really didn’t have anything left. I couldn’t think. And they couldn’t hear me. The phone wouldn’t stop ringing. No matter what room I was in—none of which were familiar or comforting to me yet—I could hear the phone, ringing and ringing. Wait. Did Tommy know where I was? Was Tommy trying to torture me too? Were his people following me again? I was getting scared.

  I had to find a safe place. I had to find sleep. Who could I trust? No one working for me was going to help me find somewhere to go. All I was asking for was a little bit of time. All these people on my payroll, and no one lobbied for me to have one day off. I was trying to tell them I just needed a couple of days blacked out, some time to rest, recuperate, and procure a bit of beauty sleep.

  In desperation, I went to a hotel near my penthouse. I thought if I could just get a room, draw the curtains, crawl under the covers, and go to sleep, things could be all right.

  I had lived in hotels for long stretches of time, and found comfort in knowing people wouldn’t bother you. And I had stayed at this particular hotel several times before while my penthouse was being worked on. It never occurred to me to instruct the front desk not to contact my management or tell anyone I was there. Why should I have to? I stumbled into my room and promptly hung the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the doorknob. Even though I’d just been run out of my brand-new, spectacular penthouse to a modest hotel room, I began to feel relief. I drew a bath, slowly sank into the warm, scented water, and put on some soothing gospel (“Yet I Will Trust in Him” by Men of Standard), hoping some of the trauma would dissolve. I began to calm down. The TRL incident was still weighing heavily on me. I felt the whole world thought I had lost it. I wrapped myself up in the hotel bathrobe and curled up in the bed. But before I could shut my eyes, I heard a knock at the door. And then there was a bang!

  I jumped up and stomped to the door, ready to cuss out whoever hadn’t read the sign. I opened it to a crowd of people—management people, Morgan, even my mother!

  “What the fuck is going on?” I yelled. “I gotta go to SLEEP!” I was panicking. I was hysterical. I was caught. I began to scream—just scream. I couldn’t talk. A whole damn delegation had arrived to drag me back to work. All I wanted was a couple of damn days off. So I screamed.

  Suddenly Morgan grabbed my arms and pulled me toward him. I became still. He stared at me and quietly said, “This whole thing is just birthdays at Roy Boy’s.”

  I immediately snapped out of it. “Birthdays at Roy Boy’s” was an inside joke we had about our father, because he always mixed up our birthdays. Morgan brought me back to our innocent familial language: the jokes and the silly sayings that only we shared, the way we used humor to cope. The words that existed before all of this, all of these outsiders. In that moment I believed Morgan understood how I felt, that he even cared about my well-being. “Birthdays at Roy Boy’s” took me back to when I felt like he could be an actual family member to me. It was personal and funny, and I was in distress. It was as if he had given me the secret code for “I got you,” appearing like a lighthouse in the storm. Emotionally, I had cracked wide open—and Morgan slithered in.

  I had been run out of my home and a hotel. There was an entire team of people hunting me down to pull me back to work, including my mother. I was beyond desperate and still in need of sleep. My record deal was an over 100-million-pound leash around everybody’s neck.

  I needed to find someone without any business interests or investments in me—someone who knew me and cared about me, who would help me or hide me. My mind immediately went to Maryann Tatum, aka Tots. She’d been with me as a background vocalist since Butterfly, and we became
like sisters after her sister died. She was one of my few friends who I thought knew how to contend with really fucked-up situations (and this one certainly qualified!). She was solid and came from solid folk. Tots grew up one of nine children in the projects in Brownsville, Brooklyn. And even though her mother had to deal with raising nine kids on her own, she was always clean, always put together. Tots was sweet and God loving but also knew her way around the streets. I thought she could help me get away from all the people coming after me, and help me get some sleep.

  We decided I could go to her apartment in Brooklyn because no one would think to look for me there. By the time I managed to pull it together and sneak out to Brooklyn, I was riddled with anxiety. Not only did I know the label was looking for me, who knew if Tommy was following me too? It wouldn’t have been the first time. (Robert Sam Anson’s 1996 exposé “Tommy Boy” in Vanity Fair reported on just some of his antics, but it totally helped justify my claims of his maniacal control and surveillance.) And the tabloids were hot on my trail and salivating for my slightest misstep (still are).

  I took a private car service to Tots’s apartment. It was certainly a good place to go incognito, but not to sleep. It was cramped and wasn’t exactly comfortable for me, plus my angst and exhaustion were giving me nervous energy. I suggested Tots and her niece Nini, and I all go for a walk to help me wind down.

  She said “Girl, wait. You do know you’re Mariah Carey?”

  I guess I couldn’t just go traipsing through the streets of Brooklyn. I needed a disguise. Nini braided up my hair, and I put on her Mariah Carey Butterfly T-shirt, sweatpants, and a baseball cap with the brim pulled down low. Hiding in plain sight, the three of us strolled down the Brooklyn streets in an attempt to recover some of my last, lost nerves. No one noticed me comfortably flanked between two Black girls in the diverse Brooklyn neighborhood.

  Tots assured me I had nothing to worry about, joking, “They probably just think you’re some cute Puerto Rican girl who went to a Mariah Carey concert.”

  We had a little laugh, a little comfort, a little escape—but I still felt like I was being tracked. I couldn’t find any relief. I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept or had a meal.

  Time was collapsing in on me, the days and events all running together. My management and the label somehow discovered I was in Brooklyn with Tots. They called and asked her to convince me to agree to do the video. My emotional instability, as a result of sleep deprivation, was starting to take hold of me. I was cornered and confused. Morgan was again dispatched to come and get me, since the “delegation” at the hotel had surmised that he was the only one I trusted. No one knew that, for me, trusting Morgan was a dangerous proposition.

  * * *

  I never knew what to expect with Morgan; he’d been so unpredictable, volatile, and violent for so long. And yet, my mother trusted him the most. He’d become her strong man, her protector, almost a father figure to her—a position that should never be filled by a son. And though he had frightened me so many times as a child, I, too, saw him as a smart, strong man. Morgan was very intelligent and impressive and had developed a treacherous set of survival skills.

  He was in the downtown New York scene in the late eighties. He worked in some of the hippest bars and clubs. He was strikingly handsome and occasionally worked as a model. He was well known and well liked. He discreetly supplied the beautiful people with their powdered party favors. He was diabolically charismatic.

  At the beginning of my career, Morgan was on a mission to be known as the one who was responsible for “discovering” me. (Seymour Stein, founder of Sire Records and signer of Madonna, actually had an opportunity for that distinction, as he was one of the first to have my demo. Alas, he said, “She’s too young”—but that’s another tangent.) Morgan had several sketchy contacts in the music industry but also introduced me to some important players in the fashion scene, like the late legendary hairstylist Oribe. In some circles, I was even known as “Morgan’s little sister,” though he hadn’t seen me as his little sister in a very long time. I was his little ticket to wealth and fame.

  I’ve often publicly recognized Morgan for being the one who loaned me five thousand dollars to pay for my first professional demo, for which I remain grateful and which I paid back five thousand times over. And I would continue to pay and pay.

  I never thought that modest initial loan made me beholden to him or should allow him to have any say in my career. I was very young, but I knew not to do business with any of the questionable music folks my brother tried to get me to work and sign with. I knew for certain, that for me, business with Morgan would come with serious strings. Like a noose.

  Less than a month after I signed my first recording contract, my mother and Morgan proposed a family gathering at the shack—maybe to celebrate? Who knew? I really didn’t like going back. The shame and fear I had endured while living there was still sticky on my skin. Against my better instincts, I agreed.

  The shack was as bleak as ever. The air in the tiny living room was thick with an anxiety and manipulation I could taste. The “wood” paneling had faded and worn down to look more like cardboard from men’s shirt packaging. Dingy white polyester lace dime-store drapes hung over the murky windows; the heating vent on the floor coughed up a layer of gray soot that climbed from the hem to midway up those pitiful panels of Irish respectability. My mother and Morgan sat together on the dreary blue corduroy couch. I sat across from them on a run-down beige recliner. Neglect was the overall accent color.

  My mother was expressionless, occasionally darting her eyes over to Morgan for approval. He was clearly the “host” of this suspicious homecoming. I could tell he was in straight scheme mode. His eyes had a wild, piercing focus. I could sense his tension, yet he had perfected the art of casting a smooth veneer over his emotions and over his intentions.

  Morgan launched straight into a rant about what a conniving lowlife my mother’s second husband could be, and how they were concerned that now that I was on my way to becoming famous, he was likely to pose a “problem.” Warning me that he knew all of our family’s dirty secrets and threatening that he would spill it all to the press. That he would tell the world about Alison being a drug-addicted prostitute and having HIV. What? My mother was silent. I recall Morgan saying that I needed protection—that I needed to be careful, that this guy could end my career before it began—and that he could “take care of it.” He could take care of him.

  In less than ten minutes in the shack, I was back in that familiar storm cloud of fear conjured up by my brother. I certainly didn’t need convincing that this man was a horrible person, but I couldn’t understand why my mother and brother dragged me back here to talk to me about some alleged threats from her terrible husband. I had just signed my first record deal! I had just pulled myself out of this crazy, scary family drama. What were they even talking about? Why were they doing this? Why was I even there?

  The vibe was getting increasingly creepy and claustrophobic. I remember Morgan saying in his quiet sinister way, “I got this plan to shut him up. You don’t need to know the details, but believe me I can make him shut the fuck up.” He went on to say that all he needed was five thousand dollars. There it was.

  I looked over at my mother, hoping to get some clarity. She just kept her eyes fixed on Morgan, who had obviously convinced her to let him run the show. He continued to remind me how mean and vindictive her husband was (and indeed he was—he’d been displaying opportunistic behavior since the moment he met me) and that the press would shame me and destroy my career. All I had ever lived for was to be an artist and I had just signed a record deal. Maybe it all could be taken away in an instant? And he said it again—for “just five thousand dollars,” he could protect me and take care of the threat. “It’s just five thousand dollars. No one will ever know.” Five thousand dollars for what? To do what? A sickening panic began to bubble in my lower belly.

  Morgan had a long history of violence, of
being mixed up with shady characters and shady situations, and there was no telling what he might do for money. In 1980, he was involved in a scandalous Suffolk County murder case. John William Maddox was murdered by his wife, Virginia Carole Maddox. Their son was an acquaintance of Morgan’s. Before the night she shot her husband in the neck with a rifle, she had propositioned Morgan to kill him for her for thirty thousand dollars. He accepted a $1,200 advance but did not carry out the job. According to the court records, her solicitation of Morgan (he was compelled to testify before a grand jury) was key evidence in disproving her claim of self-defense and helped lead to her murder conviction.

  I was barely in the third grade when Morgan was involved in a plot to murder a man for money. I remember him and my mother talking about it, and I have a vague recollection of seeing courtroom sketches in the house. Morgan snitched, so he didn’t get any time for accepting the payment.

  “C’mon, it’s only five thousand dollars, no one will ever know” kept ringing in my ears. I sprang to my feet and began pacing the five or fewer steps between the little living room and the even smaller kitchen; both seemed to shrink an inch with each passing second. “You don’t have to do anything but give me the money,” he said again. I was struggling to process what was actually happening here. I don’t even think I’d received my first advance check and already, already my brother and mother were trying to get money out of me?! And for what? To fuck up my mother’s husband?! What the fuck.