Mariah Carey’s been on a press tour promoting her upcoming memoir The Meaning Of Mariah Carey and with every stop comes another new reveal, clearing up 20+ years of rumors and speculation about the superstar’s life and career. Talking to Tina Fey for Billboard, she showed off her knowledge of Mean Girls in a trivia quiz, while in an interview with Vulture, she finally admitted that her songs “My All” and “The Roof” were about her relationship with Major League Baseball star Derek Jeter.
Her latest stop also revealed more about her and Jeter’s relationship. Popping by Oprah’s Apple TV+ show The Oprah Conversation, Carey called Jeter the catalyst for her divorce from label executive Tommy Mottola. She once compared her marriage with Mottola to prison due to his strict control over her movements and she says Jeter offered her an alternative who presented as more of an equal. “I didn’t think I would ever meet anybody who wouldn’t … feel superior to me,” she noted. “Because of the fact that I’m not one way or another in most people’s minds, and they have preconceived notions.”
She also credited the similarity between their families as another link between them, saying, “It was the racial situation — that his mom is Irish, his dad is Black, but he was also very ambiguous looking to me,” and that meeting his family introduced her to “a functional family that basically looked like mine but didn’t feel like mine.”
Meanwhile, one of her rumored paramours is said to have much more anxiety about the contents of the book, as it is said to finally open up about her long feud (and supposed romance) with Eminem.
The Meaning Of Mariah Carey is out on September 29. Get it here.
Story via Vulture.