Mariah Carey Archives

      Singer Mariah Carey was born March 27, 1970, in Huntington, Long Island, New York, to Alfred Roy Carey, a Venezuelan aeronautical engineer; and Patricia Carey, a voice coach and opera singer. She has two older siblings: a brother, Morgan, and a sister, Alison. Carey is known as one of the top "pop divas" of the 1990s, having sold more than 80 million albums worldwide. Her voice spans more than five octaves and she writes most of her own music.

         Carey's parents divorced when she was 3 years old. She stunned her mother by imitating her operatic singing as early as age two, and was given singing lessons starting at age four. After graduating in 1987 from Harborfields High School in Greenlawn, New York, Carey moved to Manhattan where she worked as a waitress, coat check girl, and studied cosmetology while writing songs and actively pursuing a music career at night.

     When she was 18 years old, Carey and her friend, singer Brenda K. Starr, went to a party hosted by CBS Records. Starr convinced Carey to bring along one of her demo tapes. She intended to give the tape to Columbia's Jerry Greenberg, but Tommy Mottola, the president of Columbia Records (later Sony), intercepted it before she could hand it to Greenberg. After listening to the tape on the way home from the party, Mottola signed Carey immediately and set her to work on her first album, Mariah Carey(1990) which included four No. 1 singles: "Vision of Love," "Love Takes Time," "Some Day," and "I Don't Wanna Cry." Her second album Emotionswas released in 1992; the title track became her fifth No. 1 single, and included hits "Can't Let Go" and "Make it Happen."

In July 2001, Carey was admitted into a New York-area hospital and put under psychiatric care after suffering what her publicists called a "physical and emotional collapse." Carey had been preparing to promote her upcoming feature film debut, Glitter, and its accompanying soundtrack album, but cancelled all public appearances. The release of Glitter was subsequently pushed back from late August to late September 2001. Carey was released from the hospital after two weeks.

In January 2002, Carey and EMI (the corporate owner of Virgin Records, with whom Carey had signed a reported $80 million contract in April 2001) severed their relationship. Though the film and soundtrack for Glitter failed to generate the desired box office and sales totals, Carey reportedly walked away from Virgin with nearly $50 million as part of her severance agreement. In May 2002, she signed a deal with Universal Music Group's Island/Def Jam Records. In December 2002, Carey released her eighth album, Charmbracelet, which debuted in third place on the charts. The record's accompanying tour, her first in more than three years, launched in June 2003.

She followed up with her tenth studio album The Emancipation of Mimi,which became the best-selling album in the U.S. in 2005. With 2008’s Touch My Body (from her eleventh studio album E=MC²), Carey surpassed Elvis Presley to become second only to the Beatles for the most No. 1 hit singles in the United States. Other albums include Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel (2009), Merry Christmas II You (2010), her second holiday album, and Me. I Am Mariah . . .The Elusive Chanteuse (2014) 

Carey has sold more than 200 million albums worldwide. She is the third best-selling female artist of all time, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. 

In June 1993, Carey married Mottola in a spectacular ceremony at Manhattan's St. Thomas Episcopal Church. The couple divorced in 1998. Carey then dated Latin singer Luis Miguel for three years, but their relationship reportedly ended in the summer of 2001. 

Carey began a relationship with rapper/actor Nick Cannon after he appeared in her music video for "Bye Bye." After dating for less than two months, the couple married on April 30, 2008, in a secret ceremony in the Bahamas. In 2011, Carey and Cannon welcomed twins Moroccan and Monroe. 

After six years of marriage, in August 2014, the couple announced their separation and their divorce was finalized in 2016. In January 2016, Carey became engaged to Australian businessman James Packer in New York City, but in October of that year, it was announced that the couple had split. After Carey's engagement with Packer ended, she began a relationship with one of her backup dancers Brian Tanaka, who is also featured in her reality show Mariah's World.

Outside of her music career, Carey is active in fundraising for The Fresh Air Fund, a nonprofit agency that provides free summer vacations to disadvantaged children in New York City, and is the co-founder of Camp Mariah, one of the organization's initiatives.