Mariah and Tommy Mottola

Thomas Daniel "Tommy" Mottola, Jr. was born on July 14, 1949 in Bronx, New York. His family was a music-oriented, middle class Italian family and from the very early ages on, Tommy would be highly interested in music, too. This interest emerged as a particular skill on the trumpet, on which he was so talented that this particular talent eventually earned him a scholarship for a private education. However, he did not pay the attention he paid to music to his academic career and after graduating Iona Preparatory School in Rochelle, New York in 1967, he dropped out of Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Before these, Mottola had been sent to military school by his family, just to frequently run away and end up returning home.

So, Mottola headed into what he could do best and searched for a career in entertainment business. His first attempts were playing small roles in various unknown films before switching into singing from acting. After a few unsuccessful singles for Epic Records, he finally decided to remain in the dark side of the industry. His decision was followed by his marriage to Lisa Clark, the daughter of ABC Records founder Sam Clark, and thanks to this marriage, he began to work for Chappell Music Publishing Company. It was for the sake of this marriage that Mottola, a Catholic, became a Jew. The couple had two children.

While working for Chappell, he discovered Philadelphia-based Soul-Rock duo Hall & Oates, consisting of Daryl Hall and John Oates. His belief in the duo was highly strong and he did his best to support them relentlessly. Among his supports were some of the first specialized music videos and one of the first modern sponsored tours, for Beech-Nut's Panasonic, Care Free Gum and Pontiac. Thanks to his efforts, Hall & Oates became one of the most popular musical acts of the '70s and earned their young manager a large amount of money.

In 1975 Mottola expanded his business and founded Don Tommy Enterprises, which would be later renamed as Champion Entertainment, to manage other artists. Among those artists were Carly Simon and John Cougar Mellencamp, using only the name "Cougar" at that time. In 1977 Champion Entertainment and CBS Records made a production arrangement and by 1987 he was already the president of CBS. The following year CBS was bought out by Sony Corporation and Mottola was named as the President and CEO of the music division of the company. With this advancement, he ironically succeeded his former mentor Walter Yetnikoff, who had originally brought him into CBS. Just at the age of 39, he was the boss of the likes of Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan.

At a party in late '80s, Brenda K. Starr, one of the artists of Columbia Records, handed Tommy Mottola a demo tape of one of her backup singers and asked him to give it an ear. On his way back home in his limousine, Tommy decided to listen to the cassette though he had initially tossed it aside. After a short listening, the mogul was so amazed by the coloratura soprano on the tape that he hurried back to the party to find the owner of the voice. Though she had gone then, Mottola subsequently tracked that girl down and arranged a very lucrative deal by immediately signing her into Columbia Records. The deal was followed by one of the most expensive promotion campaigns ever for a new artist. Finally in June 1990, the whole world, too met the girl on the demo tape without knowing she would be one of the biggest superstars of all time. In just a few weeks, her name was already known by everybody. Just as her debut album suggested, she was Mariah Carey.

After the phenomenal success of Mariah's first two albums, which were released one after another in 1990 and 1991, and five consecutive charttopper singles, Mottola began to romantically involve in Mariah and even dared to divorce his wife for the sake of her. So the fairy tale saw a happy, or happy seeming let's say, ending in 1993 when the two married in a lavish ceremony, which famous guests such as Barbra Streisand, Robert DeNiro, Billy Joel and Gloria Estefan attended. That year saw the release of Music Box, Mariah's best selling album and the acknowledgement of both her international success and her love for Mottola: The album didn't only sell more than 30 million copies worldwide, see number one in 10 countries including the US and the UK, and produce US #1 singles "Dreamlover", "Hero" and UK #1 "Without You", but also included a song called "Now That I Know", a song obviously written for Tommy by Mariah. After one year, Mottola accompanied Mariah by starring Santa Claus in the video of "All I Want for Christmas Is You", the first single off Mariah's holiday album, the best selling holiday album of all time Merry Christmas.

Mottola was not only the boss of Mariah, but also her leading mentor in music. It is said that Mariah was not allowed to co-produce her music until "Daydream" (1995) because she was under the wings of Tommy.

She was undoubtedly the best new act of the '90s and the fastest selling artist of the time, she was living in an ultra luxurious mansion and she had more than all the things she couldn't even dream of just a few years ago, but Mariah was not happy. Tommy's extremely possesive attitudes, increasing jealousy and the restrictive life he brought to Mariah was oppressing her. According to an insider, Mariah was abruptly changing when a male guest came to their house and wearing sassy dresses such as short shorts and flirtatious gestures. Beginning with "Looking In", the closing track of Daydream, Mariah also expressed how trapped she had felt through her marriage. In her recent interviews in 2008, Mariah told she wanted to be kidnapped by someone in those days and the one who finally had kidnapped her was Nick Cannon, whom she married in the spring of 2008. She also referred to her days of marriage to Mottola as "violent times" and their mansion as "private hell" in the track "Side Effects" on her album E=MC2 (2008). From beginning to end, the song stresses how this marriage has haunted her since then. Mariah doesn't hide that the concept "emancipation" in her glamorous comeback album The Emancipation of Mimi (2005) comes from the fact she finally feels truly freed from the influence of Tommy on her.

The couple separated in 1997 and divorced in 1998. Between these two time points, Mariah released Butterfly (1997), her most personal and candid album until then. The release of the album was doubtleslly quite significant as it was, even with its title, a kind of announcement of Mariah's freedom both in her private life and in her musical style. The album was also a source of curiosity because it was not hard to foresee that it would include songs about her former marriage. The title track, "Butterfly", didn't let down these expectations as it was accepted as a song written to Mariah from Tommy's point of view after their separation.

Despite the fact that it was announced the two would remain friends and was still seeing each other after the divorce, Mariah left Columbia in 2000 though one album on her record contract remained. During the era of her first post-Columbia album, Glitter, which was released within the structure of Virgin Records in 2001, Tommy Mottola seemed to use every strategy via the artists of Sony to bruise Mariah's career. He didn't only set the release date of Destiny's Child's third single "Bootylicious" off their hit 2001 album Survivor as the same date as "Loverboy", Mariah's lead single off Glitter, but also led Jennifer Lopez to use the sample, which he heard Mariah had meant to use on "Loverboy", on the remix version of "I'm Real". In this remix was commissioned Ja Rule, who accompained Mariah on the song "If We" - also on Glitter - so that Mariah would be reluctant to release this song as a single in the future as it featured an artist who appeared on the song of another artist just a short time ago. With a lot of other reasons including her mental breakdown and the period of 9/11, Glitter flopped and formed the darkest corner of Mariah's career.

After separating Mariah, Tommy dated some other stars, reportedly including Jennifer Lopez, and continued discovering new stars such as Destiny's Child, Jessica Simpson and Dixie Chicks. By the late '90s, he had escalated as high as he could and firstly became the President and Chief Operating Officer and then the President and the CEO of Sony.

In 2000 Mottola married for the third time, this time Mexican sensation Thalía. This marriage still persists and in September 2007 the couple celebrated the birth of their first child together, a daughter named Sabrina Sakaë.

2000s did not serve well for Tommy Mottola. In early 2002, The King of Pop, Michael Jackson accused him of being racist and treating his black artists in a discriminative way. According to Jackson, Mottola was the Devil. He also reminded how former artists of Sony Music such as George Michael and Mariah were pressured during their days under the label just the way himself was pressured then, famously displaying a signboard on which the photos of all three with blocked mouths were put. As a response Sony issued a statement saying the allegations of racism were untrue, because Mottola were formerly married to Mariah, who is of Venezuelan descent, and he was currently married to Mexican superstar Thalía. This statement led many people to believe that Jackson's remarks were just an attempt to excuse the disappointing sales of his then newly released album Invincible (2001). In 2003, Mottola resigned Sony and bought out the rights to Casablanca Records. Lindsay Lohan and the Lebanese-British singer Mika are among the artists of the label. Around the same period he made one of his rare public appearances and served as a judge for the "Born the Diva" talent search series. Since then, Mottola has been busy with a new entertainment company which includes productions of music, television, fashion, acting as well as management and branding. The predominate artists of the company include Usher, Lindsay Lohan and Marc Anthony.

During Mottola's 15-year administration, Sony Music saw the fastest growth of its history, transforming into one of the biggest global companies with departments in more than 60 countries and annual revenues increasing from $800 million to $6 billion by the year 2000. Tommy Mottola is also credited for creating one of the biggest management teams in the industry, buying the rights to the Beatles catalogue, making Sony the first company to make available legal digital downloads, and most importantly establishing or rebuilding the careers of great artists such as Celine Dion, Destiny's Child and automatically Beyoncé, Lindsay Lohan, Dixie Chicks, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, and Billy Joel apart from Mariah. The Latin explosion in late '90s and early 2000s are mainly attributed to him and his championing likes of Ricky Martin, Shakira, Gloria Estefan, Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez, most of whom debuted thanks to Mottola. He is also known as a mentor and former talent manager, proteges of whom include Diana Ross, Carly Simon, John Mellencamp and Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band.

Besides his efforts as a businessman, Tommy Mottola is a remarkable philanthropist who has served on the Board of Directors of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Police Athletic League, T.J. Martell Foundation for Cancer, Leukemia and AIDS Research, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and Museum, and the Federal Law Enforcement Foundation.

(by Can Özdilek)