Mariah Carey Says Derek Jeter Was The Catalyst For Her To Leave Tommy Mottola
Mariah Carey’s out there promoting her memoir, “The Meaning of Mariah Carey” (I thought the meaning was whistle tones, refusing to walk on her own two feet, and Mean Girls quotes?). In the book, which will be released next Tuesday, Mariah writes about her 1993-1998 marriage to music exec Tommy Mottola, who was 20 years her senior and super controlling. In a new interview with Oprah, she explains how an extramarital fling with Derek Jeter was “the catalyst” that helped her get out of the marriage.
Oprah asked Mariah, via People:
“Before you divorced Tommy Mottola, you met Yankee baseball player Derek Jeter, and you say he served a very high purpose in your life. This was one of those situations of the right person at the right place and the right time. What was it about Derek? He got his own song too, right?”
Carey, 50, replies candidly, “He got his own song. He got a few songs. He was a catalyst that helped me get out of that relationship because I believed that there was somebody else.”
The mere mention of Derek having his own song launched me into a feverish Google of “Derek Jeter music career” before I realized these two were speaking ~metaphorically~. Damn. Was really hoping for a baseball boy version of Tyra Banks’ failed 2004 single “Shake Ya Body”.
Mariah says she related to Derek because, like her, his mother was white and his father was Black, and he was “very ambiguous looking”. She says spending time with Derek’s “healthy” and “functional” biracial family caused her to reflect on her own upbringing:
“And they changed my viewpoint that ‘Oh, it’s because of the biracial situation that my family is so screwed up,’ as opposed to ‘it’s them.’ And yes, those things did play a huge part in their dysfunction. But it was healthy for me to see a functional family that basically kind of looked like mine, but didn’t feel like mine.”
“And he was also living his dream job and doing his dream job,” she adds. “I believe we connected in that way.”
In an interview last month, Mariah revealed that the songs “My All” and “The Roof” were written about Derek. She also recounted their first kiss (and refers to the Bedford, NY compound where she lived with Tommy as “Sing Sing”, as in the maximum-security prison:
“I can never forget that moment,” she said. “I mean, it’s not like it was some intensely deep, intellectually stimulating — again, it was a great moment, and it happened in a divine way because it helped me get past living there, in Sing Sing, under those rules and regulations.”
Mariah tells Oprah that her friend/collaborator Da Brat was shocked at how controlling Tommy was. He literally had armed security guards prepared to go after Mariah and Da Brat when they “escaped from the big house together” for a few minutes during a recording session.
Meanwhile, Tommy Mottola told Page Six he is “deeply gratified” he helped Mariah become a huge star, and he wishes “her and her family only the best”. In his own 2013 memoir, “Hitmaker: The Man and his Music”, he apologized to Mariah (via Page Six):
“If it seemed like I was controlling, let me apologize again. Was I obsessive? Yes. But that was also part of the reason for her success.” He further related of the relationship, “The problem was that I was the chairman of Sony and her husband at the same time.”
Here are some preview clips of the Oprah interview in which she gets into Tommy and Derek:
In another preview of The Oprah Conversation, which premieres tonight at midnight on Apple TV+, Mariah says she was treated like “an ATM machine with a wig on”. I pray on all the butterflies and lambs of America that Mariah’s memoir includes a detailed illustration of that perfect visual. Complete with Mariah’s mole.
Here’s the video, which Mariah posted to Instagram:
Pics: Wenn.com