Mariah Carey’s Music Feuds

When Mariah Carey had a nasty, public meltdown during the promotion of her 2001 Glitter album and movie, she was dismissed as a diva, who couldn’t handle the disappointment of an unsuccessful project, but what really prompted the meltdown? According to reports, the problems had been brewing for three years. After Carey’s February 1998 divorce from former Sony Music head Tommy Mottola he was rumored to have plotted her demise. Mottola began ... more 

When Mariah Carey had a nasty, public meltdown during the promotion of her 2001 Glitter album and movie, she was dismissed as a diva, who couldn’t handle the disappointment of an unsuccessful project, but what really prompted the meltdown? According to reports, the problems had been brewing for three years. After Carey’s February 1998 divorce from former Sony Music head Tommy Mottola he was rumored to have plotted her demise. Mottola began focusing on a then-new Sony signee, Jennifer Lopez, and is believed to have given her two of Carey’s Glitter song ideas. Mottola allegedly trumped Carey’s plans to sample Yellow Magic Orchestra’s 1978 song “Firecracker” for Glitter’s first single “Lover Boy.” A month after Carey called to secure rights to use the song, Lopez requested it and used it for her breakthrough hit, “I’m Real,” forcing Carey to instead sample Cameo’s “Candy.” The behind-the-scenes antics intensified when Mottola requested that hitmaker Irv Gotti model a remix of “I’m Real” after “If We,” a song Gotti and Ja Rule had recorded but not yet released with Carey. Though Carey never attributes her breakdown to problems with Mottola and Lopez, she describes the experience as a valuable life lesson. "I consider 'the breakdown' a breakthrough — I needed to hit rock bottom, however it happened,” she told Interview magazine. “I needed to understand the cost of pushing so hard, fighting so hard against the system." (photo: KMazur/ WireImage, Evan Agostini/ ImageDirect) less