How Mariah Carey Felt When ‘Touch My Body’ Broke Elvis’ Record

Elvis Presley is still an influential and beloved singer, but he doesn’t have the most No. 1 hits ever. With her hit “Touch My Body,” Mariah Carey beat Elvis’ record. However, she still doesn’t have the most No. 1 hits of all time.

Mariah Carey thanked her fans for getting ‘Touch My Body’ to beat Elvis’ record

2008 was a very sexy year for popular music. Lots of the biggest hits of that year were risque, such as Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop,” Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” Usher’s “Love in This Club,” and Flo Rida’s “Low.” One of the more memorable tunes from that year was Carey’s playful “Touch My Body.”

In her 2020 autobiography The Meaning of Mariah Carey, Carey recalled learning that “Touch My Body” hit No. 1. “Thanks to my fans, who really got behind the song, knowing how significant it would be, ‘Touch My Body’ became my eighteenth No. 1 single,” she wrote. “I’m forever grateful to the family of Lambs.” “Lambs” are what Carey calls her fans.

Mariah Carey still hasn’t beaten The Beatles

Carey thanked many people for the song’s success. “I’m also grateful for everybody at the record label who was so devoted to the album and to me,” she continued. “It was my biggest so far; it seemed to do the impossible by pushing me past the record long held by Elvis Presley for the all-time most No. 1 singles.”

The Beatles actually hold the record for the most No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, with 20. Carey would go on to nab a 19th No. 1 single after “Touch My Body”: her Christmas classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

The singer revealed why she took a playful approach to ‘Touch My Body’

In the music video for “Touch My Body,” Carey plays herself. She has an engineer come to her home to help her with her computer troubles. The engineer then has some ridiculous sexual fantasies about Carey, such as getting to be her knight in shining armor with a unicorn.

“I was feeling stronger, and I hadn’t felt good about myself in a while,” Carey said. “We were going to cast my new friend Nick [Cannon] in the ‘Touch My Body’ video, since he was a comedian and we were taking a humorous twist with it,” she recalled. “(I mean, c’mon, what other direction could I go with a lyric like, “Cause if you run your mouth / And brag about this secret rendezvous / I will hunt you down?’ Otherwise, it would’ve been a stalker movie).”

Carey felt Cannon (her future husband) was funny, but he couldn’t credibly play a nerd. Ultimately, Jack McBrayer of 30 Rock played the nerd in the video. Carey was pleased with his performance and said she had a lot of fun working with him. The clip definitely went down as one of the biggest moments of McBrayer’s career.

Carey is incredibly talented and, with “Touch My Body,” she became bigger than the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.