Mariah Carey battles for her honor
Pop diva Mariah Carey is determined to hold her head up in public, even as her sister Alison prepares to drag her through the mud by revealing the singer's darkest secrets in a bombshell new book. But in private, Mariah, who has heard the book discussed on The View and endured Tonight Show host Jay Leno's off-color jokes about it and her sister's past, is shattered, say pals.
"Mariah is stunned," says one friend. "She's being painted as some kind of boy-crazy orphan who grew up in a hellhole where child sex abuse, drug dealing and violence and parents who cheated were part of their everyday lives. She told me: 'I can't believe Alison would do this to me after all I've done to help her out.' "
A copy of an outline of the book titled Mariah and Me, obtained exclusively by Star, contains the following shocking allegations: While Mariah was struggling for a break, Alison, who is HIV-positive, paid for clothes and limo rides for the aspiring singer by selling her body for sex. Mariah, who married music mogul Tommy Mottola when she was just 23, once had a relationship with a drug dealer that continued after he was sent to prison. Their childhood home was anything but a safe-haven - their parents fought bitterly, their older brother Morgan terrorized Mariah and Alison was the victim of sexual abuse starting at age 5.
"This book is just as scandalous as you can get," one top New York literary agent tells Star. "I think it'll be a blockbuster and it'll break Mariah's heart."
Trouble plagued the Carey family from the day Mariah was born - March 27, 1970. Alison, who was 8, reveals that she was so jealous of her baby sister she set the house on fire when newborn Mariah came home. Incredibly, everyone escaped. But Morgan was by no means a loving brother, either, Alison says. "He's had a touch of cerebral palsy, which made one leg shorter than the other," she writes. "But these physical problems were nothing compared to his psychological state." According to Alison, Morgan tried to kill both Mariah and her. She says her parents were never around and it fell to her to make sure little Mariah survived his attacks. "Morgan threw gasoline on the floor outside the bedroom and threatened to light it," Alison recalls. "I put Mariah on my back and climbed out the window onto a tree and down the yard."
Alison also says that her parents, Alfred and Patricia, were battling so badly that they eventually split in 1973 when Mariah was only 3. A few years later, Alison moved out of the house and got married at the tender age of 15, but she stayed in touch with her little sister as things deteriorated.
"Mariah and my mother moved to get away from Morgan after he knocked my mother unconscious," says Alison. "A lot of the time, though, our mother wasn't there," Alison said in an interview. "And Mariah was left home all alone."
Alison claims there was also a scary incident in which one of her mother's live-in-lovers "shot up the house like a sniper, sending her and Mariah out on the street homeless." Alison further claims that she was sexually abused from the age of 5 by a school doctor, neighbors and even a family member. While her sister makes no claim that Mariah was a victim, an insider says that is the dark hint she is trying to convey between the lines. "I think Alison wants the readers to conclude that there was rampant sexual abuse going on in their home and no one tried to stop it or protect her or Mariah," says a source.
Shockingly, Alison claims she often supported the Carey family by prostituting herself, says a friend. And she says she continued turning tricks as Mariah struggled to make it as a singer. "If you believe Alison, the only reason Mariah made it in show business is because Alison paid for her clothes and parties and limos to chauffeur her to auditions in style," an insider reveals. "And Alison earned the money as a drug-addicted street prostitute."
Alison also trashes Mariah by claiming she had dozens of boyfriends while still in her early teens - "including one who was a drug dealer who Mariah still carried on with after he was sent to prison," says the insider.
These accusations couldn't come at a worse time for the chart-busting singer, who recently completed a sold-out tour supporting her latest hit recording, Rainbow. After divorcing Tommy Mottola, 51, in 1997, Mariah's love life has been turbulant. But she finally seems to have found peace in the arms of Latin music superstar Luis Miguel.
And she's never turned her back on her sister. Alison's lawyer Robert Venturo tells Star that Mariah gives her sister money to live on every month. "Mariah has always seen to it that Alison and her three children's real needs are met, but Alison wants more than that," says a childhood pal.
Insiders who know both sisters say Alison risks destroying Mariah in her bid to cash in on her sister's fame. She's been through three marriages, lost custody of one of her children and only sees her oldest boy occasionally. She's HIV-positive and lives out of welfare hotels in Manhattan when she can afford it or her car when she can't.
"There's nothing in Mariah's past that she's trying to hide or has to be ashamed of," says a friend. "Mariah's been loving and generous to Alison for years, hoping her sister would get her life back together, but nothing seems to help. Now Alison has chosen a terrible way to pay back Mariah's love." (Star)
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