Huge Parts of Mariah Carey’s Life Are Missing From Her Memoir

Mariah Carey is one of the most well-known names in the history of music. The beloved pop star stunned the world with her gorgeous voice and amazing range, hitting notes that most singers could only dream of.

Her latest memoir just hit the shelves, and fans are eagerly devouring every word about the singer’s tumultuous–but successful–life. Carey talks a lot about her childhood, her family, and her career, but she leaves out some interesting details that her fans would love to read about. 

Mariah Carey’s incredible talent led to a remarkable career

Carey is a gifted musician who has left her mark on the music industry in a way that few other singers do. Her interest in music started at a very young age–at just four years old, the little diva began taking voice lessons. 

After graduating from high school, Carey moved to Manhattan to pursue a music career. She worked several day jobs, using her nights to work on songwriting and finding her big break. That big break came thanks to a party hosted by CBS Records. 

Carey attended the party with her friend, Brenda Starr. Starr encouraged her to give her demo tape to execs at Columbia Records, and when Tommy Mottola heard her gorgeous voice, he signed her immediately. When her debut album was released in 1990, Carey instantly became a pop princess. 

Since releasing that self-titled album, Carey has become a pop icon. Throughout her career, she has received numerous awards, including prestigious honors like Billboard, Grammy, American Music, and World Music Awards. She also brought her talents to the big screen, acting in films such as Tennessee, Precious, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, and Girls Trip. 

Mariah Carey’s memoir is revealing a lot

The singer just released her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey. The book addresses both highs and lows of the singer’s life, reliving difficult childhood memories and bright spots from her adult life–and everything in between. 

Carey explains how coming from a mixed family shaped her views about racism and created insecurity that was difficult to move past as she grew up. Both her position in her family and her relationships with her peers made her childhood incredibly challenging. She recalls feeling uncomfortable around her siblings, as they resented her for being the youngest and lighter-skinned than they were.

She didn’t fit in at school and remembers feeling like there was no one else she could relate to. She carried this feeling into adulthood until she met Derek Jeter.

She instantly felt a connection with Jeter, despite being married to Tommy Mottola at the time. She insists that at first, it wasn’t a romantic connection, it was a refreshing feeling of being around someone who understood her feelings (Jeter is also a child of a biracial couple). 

Her book also touches on the volatile marriage with Tommy Mottola, who was 21 years her senior. She describes the marriage as a “prison”, and says her ex-husband was dominating and controlling. Although the marriage wasn’t one of Carey’s better memories, she does credit Mottola as being a one of the main reasons her career took off the way it did. 

Much of Carey’s memoir is dedicated to her music career and her family. She talks about the planned collaboration with legendary rapper Biggie and how she turned down a $5,000 offer for one of her songs as a teenager. She touches on how she never planned to have children, but once she did, she vowed to give them a childhood much better than her own. 

What did Mariah Carey leave out of her memoir?

Carey’s memoir is stuffed with memories of her childhood and music career, but it’s missing a few important parts of her life that fans kind of expected to read about. She didn’t have much to say about her marriage to Nick Cannon, her infamous New Year’s Eve performance in 2016, or her bipolar diagnosis.

Also missing from the memoir are her alleged relationship with Eminem and the time she spent hospitalized after a psychotic break. 

Carey married actor Nick Cannon in 2008. The couple had twins, Monroe and Moraccan, in 2011. They got married right after they started dating, but Cannon has stated that they always got along well and never had communication issues. According to the actor, they eventually just grew apart and decided to divorce because it would be best for their children. 

In a 2018 interview with People, Carey talked about her bipolar disorder. She was diagnosed in 2001 after being hospitalized for a mental breakdown. The star was also hospitalized in 2016, following a psychotic episode in which she allegedly thought Prince, Michael Jackson, and Whitney Houston were coming to dinner. 

Fans were eager to find out more about Carey’s supposed “relationship” with Eminem (which he confirmed in a 2002 Rolling Stone interview), but the singer remains quiet on the subject.