Forever Mariah: An Interview With an Icon

It takes a village to promote an album, and on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Mariah Carey has at least 10 people with her when she arrives at Electric Lady Studios in New York. There is a makeup person and a hair person, a manager and publicists, a lawyer and what might be a bodyguard, and an entire other group of people who are hard to place. Mariah is tall in high-heeled black boots and perfectly done up, with hair as straight as I've ever seen hair be, two hoop earrings that shimmer from her ears, and a megawatt smile. Everyone is in good spirits, like a winning sports team in the locker room at halftime.

Though this is the kind of infrastructure necessary for celebrity in the 21st century, it’s just the window dressing. When things settle down, Mariah and I peel off to a quiet room in the recording studio for a discussion about life and music. The mother of two reclines, puts her feet up on the coffee table, requests red wine for us, and, in the middle of our interview, asks her manager for pizza from an order her team had made. She wants a piece of pepperoni but there are none left, so she happily eats a plain slice, balancing it on her pink-painted fingernails.

When you think Mariah, you likely have an image of the ultimate diva dripping in diamonds, and though she does appear to be wearing some expensive jewels (two butterfly rings on her fingers—one gold, one silver—twinkle in the light), she is welcoming and relaxed here in the studio, eager and engaged when talking about the care she takes in her art. It’s something she has not always gotten a chance to discuss, as her level of fame has often inspired more questions from reporters about her dating life than her songwriting process. Read the Full Article Here.