BEING MARIAH

Superstar Mariah Carey’s autobiography reveals details of her rocky childhood, her dedication to her music, and her traumatic first marriage

- Aekta Kapoor

When one of the world’s most famous pop celebrities decides to write a memoir, one almost expects a picture-perfect, heavily edited and censored account of her life, glossing over all the icky and uncomfortable bits. But American music sensation Mariah Carey seems determined to break boundaries here too, just as she has done all through her life that was potholed with domestic abuse, marital conflict and the challenges of being a biracial woman in a white man’s world.

In her autobiography The Meaning of Mariah Carey (Pan Macmillan, ₹750) co-authored with Michaela Angela Davis, the pop singer pulls no punches as she describes the difficult relationship she had with her mother and the frequent conflicts and violence she witnessed at home. The youngest of three children of a white mother and a black father, Mariah’s parents divorced when she was three years old. While her mother got custody of Mariah and her brother, Mariah’s sister went to live with their father.

As visibly more ‘white-skinned’ than her siblings, Mariah had certain advantages in a deeply racist society, but even so, she often had to face the brunt of colorism in childhood.

She describes incidents of racism in school, and especially how her white friends singled her out and bullied her once they realised she had a black father. Ironically, she was also unable to fit in completely with her father’s black family for the reverse reason.