Sunday 5 August 2001

Mariah was paranoid about "smear" by ex



Mariah's brother Morgan warns off the media at his mother's Weschester Country home
In the stressed-out months before she had a mental meltdown, a paranoid Mariah Carey was convinced her ex-husband, Sony honcho Tommy Mottola, was trying to ruin her career. On June 9, Chuck Taylor, senior editor and single reviews editor at Billboard, the music industry bible, panned Carey's new single "Loverboy," calling it "dangerously close to self-sabotage". "The mighty may have fallen here," he wrote.

Carey seemed unable to believe the review, and freaked out. She then hired Jack Palladino, a San Francisco-based private investigator, sources said. Palladino wouldn't comment on the timing but told The Post he was hired by the diva "to pursue evidence concerning negative stories about [Carey]."

Palladino has said elsewhere that Mottola "is conducting a smear campaign against [Carey]." Mottola flatly denies it. The industry titan has said he's "deeply saddened by Mariah's illness," adding: "Any allegations that I have tried to hinder her career are completely untrue."

Taylor, for his part, said he knows all about Carey's suspicions - and thinks they are "utterly absurd". "This whole thing has spiraled way out of control," Taylor said. "You'd think that Billboard had never panned a major artist before. The truth is, Loverboy simply doesn't hold up to a lot of Mariah's previous work."

In the wake of Carey's breakdown and hospitalization on July 25, sources said Twentieth Century-Fox now is considering postponing the scheduled Aug. 31 opening of "Glitter" because Carey won't be available to publicize the movie. But as of late yesterday, the opening date hadn't been changed.

Meanwhile, state police were poised to take Carey into custody under the state's Mental Health Law had she resisted efforts to hospitalize her the night of her breakdown, records show. The police blotter item in the state trooper barracks at Sommers, N.Y., the town where Carey's mom Patricia lives and where Carey went after melting down at the TriBeCa Grand hotel, shows a call for help from Patricia Carey at 10:19 p.m. "Request medical assistance/MHL [Mental Health Law]," the blotter showed. State Trooper Arthur Kakis was dispatched to the house, but was able to take Patricia Carey and Mariah in his car without any resistance. No ambulance was ever called.

(New York Post)



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