Mariah Carey is opening up about the emotional weight of her past marriage in a new interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK. In the magazine’s September 2025 issue, the singer gets candid about the impact her relationship with music executive Tommy Mottola had on her creativity and well-being — and how she continues to process those memories more than two decades later.
“Sometimes I feel angry about that time, but I think I’ve made peace with it — in any case, I vowed I’d stop talking about it,” Carey told Harper’s Bazaar UK. “Humor is my release, and people who know me know that. I’ll make little jokes about what happened because otherwise I could make every day a sob story. It’s a coping mechanism, but it’s in my nature to laugh.”
Carey and Mottola married in 1993 when she was 23 and he was the head of Sony Music. Their dynamic, which Carey previously compared to being a “child bride” in a “Sing Sing”–like home, took a toll on her artistry. “I wanted to do more R&B, more urban music, and any time I would bring that up, it would get shot down,” she explained in the interview.
Mottola later acknowledged the relationship’s dysfunction in his 2013 memoir, “Hitmaker: The Man and His Music”, writing that their relationship was “absolutely wrong and inappropriate.” Carey ultimately parted ways with Mottola in 1998 and has since continued to evolve both personally and musically. Her upcoming album “Here for It All”, out Sept. 26, marks her first studio release in seven years.
She Wore That Wedding Dress Again in “We Belong Together”
Carey also reflected on her 2005 “We Belong Together” video, revealing she wore the actual Vera Wang wedding dress from her nuptials to Mottola. In a “Vevo Footnotes” episode shared in April, she explained the decision was more practical than symbolic.
“Since I was going to do a scene with a wedding dress, rather than spend tons of money on a new dress, we just used the one I had lying around!” she said, referring to the gown she wore during her first marriage.
The music video featured Carey as a runaway bride, and the song went on to top the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 consecutive weeks. Its parent album, “The Emancipation of Mimi”, became one of the most successful projects of her career. A 20th anniversary edition of the album dropped earlier this summer, packed with remixes, live versions and bonus tracks.
“I’m really happy that the label believed in me and let me have this big dramatic video,” she added. “And I’m happier that it resonated with a lot of people who are still enjoying this song today.”
From Past Heartbreak to Rumored Romance
Over the years, Carey’s love life has drawn public attention — but her actual dating history has remained relatively low-key. She’s been married twice: first to Mottola, and later to Nick Cannon, with whom she shares 13-year-old twins Moroccan and Monroe. She was also briefly engaged to billionaire James Packer in 2016 before they called it off that same year.
She’s also been linked to singer Luis Miguel and former Yankees player Derek Jeter. Rapper Eminem once claimed they dated, though Carey denied it and famously addressed the rumors in her songs “Clown” and “Obsessed.”
From 2016 to 2023, she was in a long-term relationship with dancer Bryan Tanaka. As of 2025, she’s rumored to be dating musician Anderson .Paak after multiple public sightings, though neither has confirmed the relationship.
Despite the ups and downs, Carey appears to be entering a new chapter — on her own terms.
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Mariah Carey Vulnerably Reveals How She’s Coping with the End of Her Marriage