In bed with Mariah Carey

How does it feel to be the diva, the No. 1 female singer in the world?

"Oh, dear! These days, everybody is called a diva so, you know... Hmmmm... Well, I don't think about myself in terms of sales or things like that." (Distracted by the tape recorders in front of her and arranges them) "Everything okay? okay!"

Okay!!!

"I'm a complete mess, sorry! I hardly slept the whole day." (As if talking to herself) "I'm gonna be all right!" (Addressing everybody) "Do you think the restaurant down the street is good for me to go after this? It's called China, isn't it?"

I think so (when, in fact, I didn't know China from dear old Goodah).

"Okay. What's the question again?" About your being the diva, the No. 1 female singer in the world. "I'm very, very grateful for that and I believe that I owe it to the fact that I'm a person who has a lot of spirituality. I believe in God very strongly but I'm not necessarily a religious person. I just have my own beliefs and... maybe that's being religious... I don't know how to explain it. It's just kinda my own inner strength that I found."

I get it...

"... and also my fans. I really have devoted and dedicated fans. I really care about them. Some people that I've met, you know, they see their fans and then like, 'Oh, 'em people are crazy.' Some people say that to me."

Like who?

(Smiles impishly) "I'm not saying any names, oh no! I'm not naming names!"

You mean you're "in touch" with your fans?

"When I do a concert, I often go down into the stadium or whatever it is, even if my partner would tell me. 'MC, don't go down there!' Look, I like being part of the crowd, I like the feeling! It's something different. Tomorrow (last Nov. 14), I'm doing an in-store record-signing and I'm looking forward to it. A lot of people won't do that. You know what I mean? But I like it because the fans show me books and other things and they talk to me and I get to feel like personal one-on-one with them. That's an experience of a lifetime, isn't it?"

Apparently, stardom hasn't changed the simple girl in you.

"I still look at myself as the same girl I was before I joined showbiz. I still remember being a little kid and saying to myself, 'Don't ever forget what it feels like to be a kid.' You see, adults misunderstand kids so much sometimes and they forget what's it like to be a kid. I also remember when I was struggling and I had only one pair of shoes."

Oh, you know how to look back where you came from (humble beginnings).

"The friend I had at that time is the same friend that I have today. She and I would sleep together on a mattress we placed on the floor in our Manhattan pad. She used to help me get waitressing jobs. But I was so bad. I was 17 and I was too young to serve. I always got fired because I was listening to my Walkman all the time, to my demo tapes. I was a complete mess in that regard. A complete mess!"

What a pity!

"In school, all I did was singing and hanging out. The point of it all is that I think I have maintained a sense of... well, the fact that I'm a normal person... you know, I've met a lot of famous persons who don't and can't connect to other people, to their fans; who have this vacant look in their eyes... you know, as if to say, I don't want to meet the fans and be like, Hi, how are you doing?' You know what I mean. I've been very disappointed with famous people like that, people I look up to, who have that kind of 'vacant look' in their faces."

We're glad to know that you're in touch with reality.

"Okay, my life itself is a surreal experience so let's not say that like I'm living an average life. We know it's not normal to have like dozens of photographers crowding around you as soon as you get off the plane, taking your picture after a 16-hour flight without having enough sleep. That's not normal, darling! It's not normal to have some bodyguards all the time, even if you can sneak out sometimes. It's not normal!"

What a life! How very, as you said, "surreal"!

"But inside me, I still recognize that it's not a normal kind of life. And maybe that's why I'm still normal." (Thinks awhile) "I don't know. I don't know!"

Did you say in an interview that you wanted to take time out for three years, stop singing and just enjoy yourself?

"Three years? I didn't say that." (Adding in jest) "That must have been Celine Dion!" (Laughs!) "Ha, ha, ha!"

Aren't those bodyguards crumpling your style?

"You know, when I used to have different bodyguards in my old life (emphasis on 'old life'), they were more like spying on me than really protecting me. So I would sometimes run away, like I did when I had a show in London. I was new in the business then; I was promoting one of my first albums. Two of my friends were there and we were just like three little girls running from the bodyguards and playing in the park. It was fun!"

You have a lot of security people now in Hong Kong. Are you sneaking out on them and playing "incognito" at the Ocean Park or the Victoria Peak or aboard the Star Ferry?

(Laughs) "I don't think so; I don't think I will. Fame is a bizarre thing. I used to look at it that way from an outsider's point of view."

You grew up in New York. How was your childhood like?

"I grew up with my mother (a former opera singer with the New York City Opera and a vocal coach) who's a dominant force in my life because I didn't have my father (African-American/ Venezuelan; while her mom is Irish) around. I mean, I saw my father on occasion but it was my mother who raised me. She allowed me to develop my own personality from a really young age. She told me that when I was six, I was six going on 50! I was like, you know, a little adult. I sang on the table with her and some friends. She introduced me to all these artistic people."

You have a strong-willed mother.

"Oh, yeah, she was a strong-willed woman. She married my father against the wishes of her family. That was in the 60s when marrying a black man was a no-no." (Her mother eventually separated from Mariah's father and remarried, this time a white man.)

The first song from your Rainbow album is called Heartbreaker. Why? Have you broken somebody's heart? Or have you gone through a heartbreaking experience?

"I've gone through heartbreak as we all have, most of us I think. Actually, I wrote it for my movie, All That Glitters; it was kind of inspired by the movie's story. And also some things in my life. Basically, it's about most women like me. You know, we end up going back to the guy who's the worst one for us. All the time. Over and over again!"

You must be masochist!

"Yeah, yeah! I guess so! It's just like your friends are telling you, 'Why do you have to go back to that guy?' Did you see the Heartbreaker video? In one scene, my friends are making me go there. Really, I'm more confrontational in real life. There are two Mariahs in the video, the other one bad. We wanted the bad Mariah to be so much more evil than the real Mariah, to have that drastic difference. But anyway, oftentimes girls would go back to the bad guy instead of to the guy who really loves and cares about them. So that's why the song says, 'It's a shame to be so euphoric and weak when you smile at me and you tell me the things that you know persuade me to relinquish my love to you, but I cannot resist it all.' Meaning, all the guy has to do is be like, 'Come on...!', and the girl goes back to him. That's basically why I called that song Heartbreaker. It should be any girl's anthem." (Laughs)

What's your favorite among your songs?

"In all my life... among all the songs that I've written?"

Yes, among all the songs that you've sung and that you've written.

"It's really hard to name just one because I like some songs for different reasons. A lot of my songs that were never released are among my favorites. Like I have a song called Underneath the Stars; it was on the Daydream album but they never put it out, they never released it as a single and it just killed me that they didn't. To me, lyrically it was one of my best songs. I like doing ballads, but I also love hip-hop because I grew up in New York and I grew up on hip-hop."

Your fans prefer you more as a balladeer.

"But I really also love to do rock songs. When I did Hero, I didn't like the way the rocker came on, even though I wrote it. It was like people were more in control then, saying, 'Leave that, leave that! It's perfect, it's perfect!' But I felt like I wasn't happy singing certain parts; I wasn't doing them the way I really wanted to. If you notice, if I sing Hero 'live,' I do it differently and I think that the audience also feels it because they cry listening to that song. And even though I'm the first one to say, 'It's a cliche!,' whatever, I don't care because when I sing it 'live,' people really relate to it, even the kids. I call Hero 'Mariah's theme.' That song came out of a real feeling of, like, 'Man, I'm just feeling very oppressed right now!' I was feeling frustrated with some people I was dealing with in a working capacity. It says so much about my life."

Oh, yeah?

"I wrote Hero with kids in mind. Because, you know, people forget when they're growing up what it was like to be in junior high (school) and not feel accepted. When you're different, when you're not the same as everybody else for whatever reason and you're 13-years old, it's like the end of the world. When your friends are mad at you, it's like the end of the world. You can laugh at it now, but a lot of kids end up committing suicide these days. You know, we have a lot of tragedies and that's I want to say to kids, to everybody really but mainly to the kids, because I promise myself never to forget what it was like to go through that feeling."

Did you have a miserable school life?

"I had fun in school but I also had this feeling that I was different, that I was a mixed-race kid, I was insecure about my looks. I mean, it was only two years ago that I started showing my forehead because people were telling me that, you know... That's why I always covered one side of my face because I never really felt secure with my looks as a kid. There's a line in the song (Hero) that says, 'I have learned there's an inner peace I own; something of my soul that they cannot possess. I won't be afraid of darkness because there's a light in me that will shine brightly. They can try but they can't take that away from me.' Meaning, no matter what anybody says, if you have that power within yourself, you get through it. And that's what got me through everything in my life because I really had a kinda screwed-up childhood. People don't know because I don't talk about it that much. I don't need to talk about it because it's past and I'm grateful for what I have now."

Now that you're into the movies (she also appeared in The Bachelor), is there any actor you'd like to work with?

"There are a lot of actors that I really admire. Honestly, I'd love to work with Ed Northon, Gary Oldman and Dianne Wiest (The Parenthood, etc.) who's an amazing actress. I love her in Bullets Over Broadway, one of my favorite movies. I also love Morgan Freeman."

What about Leonardo DiCaprio?

"Oh, he's great!"

There's a rumor about Leonardo and you.

"That was a lie. We never had an affair. That never happened. I do know him, but the rumor that we were together was just not true." (Her boyfriend is Mexican singer Luis Miguel. She was married for four years to Tommy Mottola, president of Song Music Entertainment.)

How would you describe Mariah Carey in three words?

(Laughs) "As you can see, I can't describe things in just three words. I don't know."

Oops! Three words - I don't know.

"Oh, don't say that. Please don't say that. Oh, no, no, no, no, no! That's gonna be the new quote."

Okay, three words.

(Thinks hard) "I would say workaholic, insecure and optimistic. Three words. You got 'em!"

(Philstar)