BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS »

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Mariah Carey Biography


Pop diva Mariah Carey married rapper-actor Nick Cannon on April 30, 2008, in a secret ceremony in the Bahamas.

Carey herself confirmed the wedding a week later Wednesday (May 7), according to People.com.

The couple did not make an official statement immediately, but Latina.com broke the news May 1 and E! Online reported a relative of Cannon’s confirmed the wedding.

"He called us and told us all about it,” Linda Cannon told E!. “We are happy for him. If that is what he wants then we are happy for him.”

People.com also reported May 2 that Carey had obtained a marriage license on the island of Eleuthera. And a New York Post report said Carey had wed at her estate off Eleuthera.

The couple had been dating for less than two months, their romance having blossomed after he appeared in her music video Bye Bye. Then Carey was spotted with a large diamond ring on her engagement finger April 26 at the Tribeca Film Festival.

"We really do feel we are soulmates," Carey told People. "I never felt a love like this was in the cards for me."

Carey was born March 27, 1970, in Long Island, New York to Alfred Roy Carey, a Venezuelan aeronautical engineer; and Patricia Carey, a voice coach and opera singer. Has two older siblings: a brother, Morgan, and a sister, Alison.


Carey is known as one of the top “pop divas” of the 1990s, having sold more than eighty million albums worldwide. Her voice spans more than five octaves and she writes most of her own music.

Carey’s parents divorced when she was three. She stunned her mother by imitating her operatic singing as early as age two, and was given singing lessons starting at age four. After graduating in 1987 from Harborfields High School in Greenlawn, New York, Carey moved to Manhattan where she worked as a waitress, coat check girl, and studied cosmetology while writing songs and actively pursuing a music career at night.

When she was eighteen, Carey and her friend, singer Brenda K. Starr, went to a party hosted by CBS Records. Starr convinced Carey to bring along one of her demo tapes. She intended to give the tape to Columbia’s Jerry Greenberg, but Tommy Mottola, the president of Columbia Records (later Sony), intercepted it before she could hand it to Greenberg. After listening to the tape on the way home from the party, Mottola signed Carey immediately and set her to work on her first album, Mariah Carey (1990) which included four No. 1 singles: “Vision of Love,” “Love Takes Time,” “Some Day,” and “I Don’t Wanna Cry.” Her second album Emotions was released in 1992; the title track became her fifth No. 1 single, and included hits “Can’t Let Go” and “Make it Happen.”

In March 1992, Carey appeared on MTV’s Unplugged. This performance was released as an album and a home video, resulting in another No. 1 single (a cover of The Jacksons’ “I’ll Be There”). Her next album Music Box (1993) cut back a bit on the lavish studio production techniques heard in her previous albums, and included the No. 1 singles, “Dreamlover” and “Hero.” Her November 1994 release Merry Christmas combined traditional Christian hymns with new songs. In 1995 she released Daydream; the first single “Fantasy” debuted at No. 1. It also included collaborations with R&B and hip-hop artists, such as Wu-Tang Clan and Boyz II Men (“One Sweet Day”).

Her 1997 album Butterfly included eleven compositions written by Carey, and demonstrated her continued interest in hip-hop and R&B, including the Sean “Puffy” Combs produced “Honey,” her twelfth No. 1 hit. #1’s (1998) featured her thirteen previous chart-topping singles as well as the Academy Award-nominated “The Prince of Egypt (When You Believe),” a duet with fellow pop diva, Whitney Houston. Carey is also rumored to be pursuing an acting career.

In June 1993, Carey married Mottola in a spectacular ceremony at Manhattan’s St. Thomas Episcopal Church. The couple divorced in 1998. Carey then dated Latin singer Luis Miguel for three years, but their relationship reportedly ended in the summer of 2001.

Carey is active in fundraising for The Fresh Air Fund, an independent non-profit agency that has provided free summer vacations to more than 1.6 million disadvantaged New York City children since 1877.

In July 2001, Carey was admitted into a New York-area hospital and put under psychiatric care after suffering what her publicists called a "physical and emotional collapse." Carey had been preparing to promote her upcoming feature film debut, Glitter, and its accompanying soundtrack album, but cancelled all public appearances. The release ofGlitter was subsequently pushed back from late August to late September 2001. Carey was released from the hospital after two weeks.

In January 2002, Carey and EMI (the corporate owner of Virgin Records, with whom Carey had signed a reported $80 million contract in April 2001) severed their relationship. Though the film and soundtrack for Glitter failed to generate the desired box office and sales totals, Carey reportedly walked away from Virgin with nearly $50 million as part of her severance agreement. In May of 2002, she signed a deal with Universal Music Group's Island/Def Jam Records. In December 2002, Carey staged a comeback with her eighth album, Charmbracelet, which debuted in third place on the charts. The record's accompanying tour, her first in more than three years, launched in June 2003.

Carey has sold around 160 million albums worldwide. She is the third best-selling female artist of all time, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. With 2008’s Touch My Body (from her eleventh studio albumE=MC²), Carey passed Elvis Presley to become second only to The Beatles for the most number one hit singles in the U.S.

0 comments: