The real girl behind all the rumors

Cosmo Girl: Had you seen someone who inspired you?

Mariah: I Dream Of Jeannie. The first thing I wanted to be was a genie. I didn't even wanted to be a singer, I wanted to actually be magical and, like, you know, do those things. I wanted to be Barbara Eden, but I didn't know she was an actress because I was so little. I don't think I've ever said that in an interview before in my life! When I realized that being a genie wasn't a realistic call, well, I knew I wanted to sing. Music has always be my form of expression and my form of release and my saving grace. So it's like, I thank God that I have this gift of music in my life because otherwise I don't know where I would be.

Cosmo Girl: But a lot of people where critical of your talent when you were goring up. How did you figured out that you had to be your own "hero"?

Mariah: My mother is very much responsible for me believing in myself. She named me Mariah because she thought it was a good stage name. And she was the one who encouraged me by saying, "Don't say if I make it, say when I make it" all throughout my childhood. Whenever I said, "I want to do this," she was the only one who was always there for me.

Cosmo Girl: You must've been in the chorus in high school, right?

Mariah: Not in high school, in sixth grade, I was Maria in "The Sound Of Music" because my chorus teacher was so cool. So I did the do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do thing. I also got to lead the class a lot so I like that. But then they didn't give me the part I wanted in Oliver. So I quit.

Cosmo Girl: Where you known as "the girls with the awesome voice" back in high school?

Mariah: I didn't tell people that I sang. Nobody knew about that. I had this special little secret, which was that I believed in myself, and I have the gift of music.

Cosmo Girl: Did you have the same singing voice back then? Like the Mariah Carey we heard on your first CD - was that your singing voice when you were in high school?

Mariah: No. You know what, honestly, when I quit smoking I gained to octaves in my voice.

Cosmo Girl: You hear that, Girls? No smoking!

Mariah: I don't smoke now, but I smoked from 12 to 18. It really messed up my voice. What happened was I would get a cold and then keep a cold, but it would be even worse because I was smoking cigarettes. So I made a promise that if I got my voice back, I would never smoke again. I realized smoking is not an important thing in my life - it does nothing for me, and if I don't stop, it's going to hurt me. So I quit. I was like, Hello! I'm on the verge of all my dreams, but I think I'll smoke something that does absolutely nothing to me but make my hair stink!

Cosmo Girl: So nobody in high school knew you could sing? They just though you were cute, cool, fun to hang out with...

Mariah: I don't know if they thought I was cute. I mean, I didn't feel cute. By about ninth grade I was OK. I had figured out the blow-dryer trick. And how to use the hand dryer in the bathroom to fix my bangs. But, I mean, it took me a minute to work through my bizarre kind of ambiguous neither-here-nor-there-looking self.

Cosmo Girl: Did the other kids in school ever make you feel funny or tease you about being biracial?

Mariah: Well, one of the earliest memories I have is of nursery school. I was drawing a picture of my family. I picked up a brow crayon and started making my father. The kindergarten teachers, who I now realize were young, were standing behind me, and started jiggling. I remember thinking, Why are they laughing? They said, "What are you doing?" I was like, "I'm drawing the picture like you said." They said, "Why are you making him that color?" And I said, "Because that's the way he is." Then they laughed more. That's an intense memory. So little things like that, make me feel insecure. Also, most of my mother's family disowned her when she married my father. When you have that issue - if someone's family is going to disown them for this union, What does that make me? If I'm a product of this, How is it alright to be me?

Cosmo Girl: That's pretty tough. Did anybody called you nasty names in high school?

Mariah: Not to my face because I would have beat the shit out of them. I got that way of protecting myself. Slamming people who I couldn't be like into lockers was a defense mechanism.

Cosmo Girl: So you are a hater?

Mariah: I was a hater... a little. In my very insecure days.

Cosmo Girl: You weren't "discovered" until a few years after high school. How did you survive while you were trying to make it as a singer?

Mariah: I was selling T-shirts at a bar because I was too young to serve alcohol, waitressing, doing whatever random thing I could do. I sucked as a waitress, I was the worst! A friend let me stayed with her, so far a year or so, I was living in a dusty loft in Manhattan, but it was so small. I had a poster of Marilyn Monroe on the back wall, my Marilyn books, my writing tapes, my lyric book, notes from my friends, and a mattress. I really only had like three things to wear because living in Manhattan I couldn't wear the same stuff I wore at school - it was different.

Cosmo Girl: What would you tell to yourself when you'd get into bed at night?

Mariah: Well, actually, it wasn't at night. I would get home at seven o'clock in the morning! I just was grateful I was there.

Cosmo Girl: You never complained?

Mariah: No, I mean, at that point, I had one pair of black shoes, with holes in them. You know those kind of lace-up boots? They were my mom's, but my mom is a size smaller than me, so they wore out walking back and forth from work, and then I had a flap that stuck out. Sometimes it would snow and then my socks would get wet. My brother bought me a pair of sneakers, but I have these big feet, I'm a size 9½, and my sneakers made my feet look even bigger so I didn't really want to wear them. So I tended to stick with the black shoes even though they were hideous. I saved them - I want to find them and have them bronzed because now I have a whole closet full of shoes. I think a lot of that comes from not having shoes.

Cosmo Girl: Speaking of having a lot of shoes, tell us exactly what you were doing at the moment when you learned that you were the highest-paid recording artist in the world.

Mariah: I was on a boat in Puerto Rico, my favorite spot. I was with a bunch of people I really love, people who were giving me really good positive energy. Basically all of my of my good friends, the people I really connect with. Nobody was looking over my shoulder going, "Pay attention to me," or like, "Make this all about me." So, we're on this boat, having a good time, and we were listening to "Butterfly," which I also created on that spot. I'm lying there looking at the stars, and suddenly fireworks start going off randomly. We're listening to it, we're telling each other stories, and my phone rings. It's my manager, and she's like, "Guess what? The deal went through!" My friend jumped into the water, I jumped into the water - it was pitch - black, the fireworks were going off, and the water was clear and beautiful. It was an intense moment.

Cosmo Girl: Wow, that sounds so amazing and glamorous. Is being famous as great as you thought it would be? Or is totally not what you expected?

Mariah: I thought it was going to be like, you're in this club and suddenly everybody has this amazing secret - and we're from another planet. And really, I'm the same person that I was always was. I'm more secure in some ways and more insecure in other ways. But there's no club. It's like an extended version of high school for me, which sometimes was good and sometimes bad. But it's better because I can be more open about who I am.

Cosmo Girl: Your music seems to be coming from a different place these days - it's less sad. Is that because you're happier?

Mariah: There will always be an undertone of sadness in who I am.

Cosmo Girl: It must be so hard to always be scrutinized. Does it bother you when people call you a "Diva" and say stuff in the media like, "Oh, she has to have pink toilet paper."

Mariah: First of all, that's not even freakin' sanitary. [laughing] I mean, who want colored dye... I mean, I'm not even gonna say it... it's really nasty. There are always stories brewing, like in the tabloids and stuff, but I know what I do. I know that I'm not promiscuous: I know that when I wear a pair of hot shorts in a video, I'm playing dress up. I'm the same 6-year-old girl playing dress up who thought it was cute and wanted to be like Jeannie or Marilyn Monroe. But when I started, I was pretty conservative with my clothes. It wasn't what I do now. At this point, I'm like, Whatever. I've recently come to the conclusion that I can't change certain things, this is my reality, and I might as well make the best of it.

Cosmo Girl: Do you really mean that?

Mariah: Yeah, I have own that right now. I have to say it with conviction and convenience myself that it's true because otherwise I'm really not gonna make it through stuff. My real fans understand. I feel like they're an extended family to me, in a strange way. Because they have accepted me as a person, even though they don't know me personally.

Cosmo Girl: Well, we are your family, sister!

(Cosmo Girl, October 2001)

Many thanks to Mariah's Web.