Mariah Carey: “My childhood Christmas was bittersweet, I lived in a somewhat brutal family”

If there is something that marks the beginning of the Christmas season, sometimes with fearful haste, it must be listening ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ while we walk the aisles of the supermarket in search of products not yet Christmas. Mariah Carey It has been, for a few years, a name as synonymous with the festivities as Santa Claus or the Reindeer Rodolfo. Almost all thanks to the aforementioned song (a modern standard that, let’s not forget, she co-composed herself), but also to her reworking of public domain classics such as’ God rest ye merry, gentlemen ‘,’ Hark! The herald angels sing ‘u’ O come all ye faithful ‘.

Last year, some of us changed ‘Telepasión’ for ‘A magical Christmas with Mariah Carey’, an Apple TV + special, shot in the middle of the covid, but warm and euphoric, which From this Friday, day 3, it has a sequel in ‘The magic continues with Mariah Carey’. If the previous one was directed by the expert in television shows Hamish Hamilton and Roman Coppola, this one arrives with the signing of Joseph Kahn, author of classic videos for Destiny’s Child (‘Say my name’), Britney Spears (‘Toxic’) or Kylie Minogue (‘All the lovers’, shot in the Montjuïc Olympic swimming pool).

She is the spirit of Christmas

“I love the vision Kahn has of me,” Carey says in a fully Christmas setting (gifts, fireplace, lights and glitters) to reporters who have waited patiently for hours for his virtual appearance. “Everything in the special is fun, it’s festive, it’s the clear spirit of Christmas. The kids go out on the special & mldr;”. Refers to her 10-year-old twins, Moroccan and Monroe, invited for example to an interview led by journalist Zane Lowe.

They also participate Khalid and the gospel legend Kirk Franklin, his companions in the new song ‘Fall in love at Christmas’. “I have composed many Christmas songs – explains Carey -, but none like this: it is a love song and it is gospel. It is about a couple determined to fall in love again at Christmas. That is their only idea this year: to give themselves back to love. “. Another musical milestone is his new take on the classic ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’, the greatest Christmas rock’n’roll song of all time, originally sung by Darlene Love on ‘A Christmas gift for you from Phil Spector’.

In addition, the new special offers the opportunity to see Mariah grapple with the jeweled gold dress that Dolce & Gabbana has prepared for the occasion: more than 27 kilos of dress. “I challenge anyone to walk with that on them!”

Difficult childhood

With his spectacular way of celebrating the holidays, Carey is not prolonging something that lived in his finances. He writes about it in his memoir ‘The meaning of Mariah Carey’, more explicit about his experiences than songs that are often quite coded. “When I was little, I used to have a bittersweet Christmas, because I lived in a dysfunctional and somewhat brutal family”, he assures. His childhood was not easy. Born to a black father and a white mother, Carey saw how her family had problems both in the black neighborhoods, while her parents were together, and in the whites, when she was alone with her mother and she could not give her the life that other parents gave. there to her children, in part because she had been excluded from her family for marrying a man of part African-American lineage.

“So no,” Carey continues, ” my Christmases weren’t always fun, but I always wanted them to be and remained optimistic. My mother helped me understand Christmas. She used to make mulled wine and she and her friends sang Christmas carols. Although it was a humble home, it was transformed with gestures like those. ”

When asked about the best (or best, craziest) Christmas present he has made to date, in an attempt to ease the sadness a bit, Carey gives an answer that lives up to expectations: “I would say a Ferrari. Did he deserve it? I don’t know that anymore. ” Carey seems to refer to the car that she gave in 2012 to her second husband and father of her children, Nick Cannon, from whom she divorced in 2016. Her previous husband was the music mogul Tommy Mottola, with whom the experience was apparently, if possible, even worse: He had her watched, controlled her and threatened her with a knife when it was clear that he was going to leave her, as he has told in the aforementioned memories.

Mariah: The Movie

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No, we are not talking about the failed ‘Glitter, all that glitters’, but the ‘biopic’ that Carey wants to carry out with the help of Lee Daniels (‘Precious’). “For the film adaptation, there are many decisions to be made. They are all big decisions, because the project really matters to me. This has nothing to do with Christmas. This is my life.”