Mariah Carey hopped on The Late Show last night (December 7) to take Stephen Colbert’s “Colbert Questionert,” a recurring segment in which the host asks his guests the same set of general questions. While introducing the segment, Colbert referred to Carey as the “Queen Of Christmas,” at which point Carey had to get something off her chest.
Cutting Colbert off, Carey said, “First of all, may I say: I never called myself the ‘Queen Of Christmas.’ Can we please be clear on that?” She continued, “Others have said, ‘The self-proclaimed ‘Queen Of Christmas.’ I’m like, ‘Really? I’m gonna do that?’ They can look up every interview I’ve ever done and, not to get super religious, but I was like, ‘I think if anybody would be the ‘Queen Of Christmas,’ that would be Mary.’ And then somebody else uses my quote against me!”
She then explained what has sparked her love for the holiday, saying, “Christmas is for all and I just happen to actually really love Christmas, because I grew up and I had kind of a tough childhood, and I always wanted Christmas to be perfect, and it never was. And so then when I was able to provide myself and my friends, and then later, now my kids who are 11 — hi, ‘Roc and ‘Roe — we have the most festive Christmas ever. […] It’s actually authentic and it came from a place of longing to have some normalcy and some, you know, peace and… just a lovely holiday, and somehow, someone would be throwing mustard at somebody else, or ketchup or whatever. So I went through that, and now, it’s just… I wait for it all year long. So it is actually a real thing.”
She also made sure to note that she and her “All I Want For Christmas Is You” collaborators only make “1/16th of a penny” from streams of the song.
Check out the interview above.