Mariah Carey has opened up about her turbulent love life in a candid interview – and revealed which ex makes her blood boil.
The music icon, 56, who shares twins with ex-husband Nick Cannon, admitted first spouse Tommy Mottola still makes her ‘angry’ as she reflected on their five year marriage in a chat with Harper’s Bazaar UK.
The couple was married from 1993 until 1998 after he discovered her in the late 1980s when he was then head of Columbia Records.
Carey married Mottola, now 77, when she was just 23-years-old and he was 20 years her senior.
Before their marriage she already was a rising star with the success of her debut namesake album. During their marriage, her career skyrocketed, with the success of her hit songs Hero, Fantasy, All I Want For Christmas Is You, and Always Be My Baby, among others.
Carey has previously described her marriage to Mottola as a ‘private hell’ and claimed the music supremo was controlling – allegations Mottola has vehemently denied.
Mariah Carey has opened up about her turbulent love life in a candid interview – and revealed which ex makes her blood boil – pictured June 2025
The music icon, 56, who shares twins with ex-husband Nick Cannon, admitted first spouse Tommy Mottola still makes her ‘angry’ as she reflected on their five year marriage in a chat with Harper’s Bazaar UK – pictured 1995
She said this week: ‘Sometimes I feel angry about that time, but I think I’ve made peace with it – in any case, I vowed I’d stop talking about it.
‘Humor is my release, and people who know me know that. I’ll make little jokes about what happened because otherwise I could make every day a sob story. It’s a coping mechanism, but it’s in my nature to laugh.
She said of her desire to go against Mottola’s vision of her as a mainstream pop artist: ‘I wanted to do more R&B, more urban music, and any time I would bring that up, it would get shot down. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the music I was making – I just felt there was more inside me that I wanted to release.’
Carey added she felt ‘free for the first time’ when she released 1997 album Butterfly.
‘You might want to picture a child bride,’ Carey previously said of her dynamic with Mottola in a 2019 Cosmopolitan interview.
‘There was a conscious effort to keep me as this all-American, whatever that means, girl. It was very controlled. There was no freedom for me as a human being. It was almost like being a prisoner,’ said Carey.
She also spoke to Oprah about her short relationship with Derek Jeter, that served as ‘a catalyst’ for the end of her first marriage.
She told Harper’s Bazaar UK that she ‘tries not to talk about’ her first marriage
The couple was married from 1993 until 1998 after he discovered her in the late 1980s when he was then head of Columbia Records – pictured 1997
She welcomed twins with second husband Nick Cannon – who she divorced in 2016 – pictured 2012
The star was briefly engaged to James Packer – pictured 2015
After that divorce she had a failed engagement to Australian billionaire James Packer and dated former backup dancer Bryan Tanaka for seven years until 2023
When she started her affair with the baseball heartthrob, the songbird was married to Mottola.
From 2008 until 2016 she was married to Cannon, with whom she amicably co-parents twins Monroe and Moroccan, 14.
Cannon is now a dad of 12 by six different women.
After that divorce she had a failed engagement to Australian billionaire James Packer and dated former backup dancer Bryan Tanaka for seven years until 2023.
In recent months she has been rumored to be dating Anderson .Paak, 39.
