Iconic powerhouse vocalist, Mariah Carey , was an absolute staple in ’90s music and continues to blow our hair back with her incredible voice to this day!
While we know she gave us hits like “We Belong Together”, “Always Be My Baby”, “Hero”, and “Touch My Body”, and she’s the queen of whistle notes, there is so much beneath the surface that fans don’t know about her.
1. She grew up “extremely poor.”
“Actually, I know what it feels like to be extremely poor, living on my own in New York — or actually live with like five girls all on mattresses on the floor. This has not been given to me. But that’s the part that people won’t really see, and I wish I had maybe made a little bit more of a point of it. But also, it’s not me to be like, ‘Look at my life. Look how much I’ve suffered. ‘ That’s not who I am,” she told Variety .
2. She knows that she is perceived as a diva, but doesn’t think that it’s accurate.
“I really play it up with the diamonds and the hair and the makeup and the this-and-the-that and the shoes and the whole ensemble, but honestly, is that me? I don’t really know,” she told Variety .
3. She doesn’t watch much television.
When asked in an interview with Variety if she has ever watched Keeping Up With The Kardashians , she quickly replied : “I don’t watch TV. When I watch TV, I’d rather watch a series that I really like.”
4. She requires 15 hours of sleep before singing.
She revealed to Billboard that prior to shows she not only requires a full 15 hours of sleep, but she also needs an entire day of vocal rest — no speaking or singing.
5. She wears high heels because as a child, she always walked around on her tip-toes.
“I never wear flat shoes because, since I was little, I walked on tippy-toes. I do not know why, it’s something my friends make fun of, but the Mariah that stays constant is the one wearing high-heel shoes even if I am barefoot,” she told Independent .
6. She hates elevators.
“I’ve been stuck in elevators in Germany, in Japan and in my own apartment close to where the World Trade Center used to be, so I hate elevators. All the time I’m saying, can we not take the stairs? I’m always about stairs, even if I am wearing heels,” she told Independent .
7. She has a seven-octave range.
For anyone that knows anything about singing , this is an insanely impressive range.
She can not only hit deep, bass-like notes, but she can also hit notes that are reminiscent of a dog-whistle.
8. Being famous has taken a toll on her mental health.
She revealed to Independent that at times, being a celebrity can be a bit overwhelming.
RELATED STORIES
However, she also expressed that she has an incredible support system of family and day-one friends that she knows she can depend on.
9. She wants to write a children’s book for mixed-race kids.
She revealed to Independent that she had wrestled with the idea of writing a children’s book for children of mixed-races who struggle to fit in because of their skin color.
This especially hits home for her, as both of her children are half African-American.
She, herself, struggled being mixed-race growing up.
“My whole life it has been something I have struggled with. I think people have wanted to put me in some sort of a box so they can understand who I am. It is not easy for people to look at someone and think: her father’s black, her mother’s white, she does not look like either of them,” she told Independent .
10. She used to be against marriage.
Although she has been married and divorced, she admitted that initially, her plan was to never get married at all.
“I said to myself as a child I would never get married because my parents got divorced when I was three,” she told Independent .
11. She was very uncomfortable when Ellen DeGeneres tried to pressure her to drink champagne on her show to see if she was pregnant or not.
“I was extremely uncomfortable with that moment is all I can say. And I really have had a hard time grappling with the aftermath,” Mariah later told Vulture .
“I can’t believe you did this to me, Ellen,” she said after re-watching the infamous clip. “This is peer pressure. What Ellen is doing, this is peer pressure.”
12. She is a big fan of Prince.
In an interview with PrideSource she revealed that she loves Prince’s music and always will.
She grew up listening to it, and she was lucky enough to get to know him and become a friend of his while he was still alive.
13. She faced a ton of sexism when she started out in the music industry.
This, sadly, is not too surprising.
“I did not feel like I was being treated the same as some male artists when I was coming out with my first album,” she told Variety .
“The decision makers, particularly in the beginning of my career, were always men and exclusively men,” she continued.
“There were no powerful women around me, or even self-made women around me. I made a decision early on that I never wanted to be beholden to a man. I didn’t want to be a kept woman. “
