Thursday 19 December 2002

Mariah Carey: "I'm not wacko"

In an hour-long interview on CNN's "Larry King Live" to be broadcast on Thursday, superstar singer Mariah Carey assured her fans that despite her well-publicized struggles with stress in recent years, she is not "wacko". "I'm not wacko. But my point is already made. I mean, we're all a little wacko sometimes, and if we think we're not, maybe we are more than we know," Carey said. "But my point was, these things are personal sort of messages to my fans, and they understand it. I don't expect, you know, whatever talk show host to understand my little lingo with my fans, you know what I mean?"

The singer also denied rumors she attempted suicide. "That was the thing that really upset me the most. There are kids who are such fans that they emulate almost everything I do. So the last thing I would want them to think is, you go through something, or you're having a personal problem or whatever, and you go and try to commit suicide," she said.

She described her marriage to Sony Music boss Tommy Mottola as full of highs and lows. "I have to say there were some very good times and there were some very, very, very difficult times. And that's what it is. And we both benefited a lot from the relationship," Carey said. "I don't want to go into it, because I respect him, and I want the best for him, and I hope he's happy in his life now. But it's difficult. It's difficult to take somebody like me and try to make me be a different way than what I am," she said. "I allowed myself to be controlled, but every time I got a chance, and I let myself go and had some fun, it was almost like, you know, a dark cloud would come over and we'd all have to go, 'OK. Let's not have so much fun now.'"

But while telling King that she considers herself a romantic - "I think I have to be romantic to write the kind of songs that I write" - she questions whether she has been in love. "I don't know that I've ever actually really been in love," she said. Carey also questions whether she can sustain another romantic relationship. "I think it would be nice, but you know, my problem is I can't really trust people, because you never know what their agenda is."

Carey's appearance came on the heels of the release of her new album, "Charmbracelet". Carey, 32, one of the best-selling female performers of all time, was bought out of her last recording contract by Virgin Records for $28 million after disappointing sales of her previous album, the soundtrack of her movie flop, "Glitter". The axing by Virgin came as another blow to Carey, whose professional and private life has been the target of tabloid gossip columns since the collapse of her marriage to Mottola, who discovered Carey as an 18-year-old waitress.

The launch of "Glitter" had been delayed and downscaled after Carey suffered a painfully public breakdown. It was then launched on a day when world eyes were elsewhere - September 11. In July 2001, Carey checked herself into a hospital for "extreme exhaustion". Her publicist cited the singer's recent work in completing two movies, "Glitter" and "Wise Girls", while simultaneously writing, recording and producing the "Glitter" soundtrack album. "Glitter" came after an almost uninterrupted decade of success for Carey who won Grammies for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1990. Carey released nine albums on the Columbia/Sony label and has sold more than 150 million singles and albums worldwide.

(CNN)



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