INTRODUCTION

HER STORY

QUOTES

During her childhood, she suffered from racial discrimination and felt like an outcast among her peers. Her situation was exacerbated by her refusal to call herself either black or white, insisting instead that she was black, Venezuelan, and Irish.

Luis Miguel once gave his then-girlfriend Mariah a $96,000 snowflake bracelet (which Julia Roberts was loaned for the 2001 Oscars).

She once said she used the shower in her 38-foot long bathroom in her $9 million triplex only once because "there are too many knobs to remember."

She broke the record of the Beatles for the amount of US number one singles - 15 in all.

When she checked into London's five-star Claridges Hotel in October 2003, she asked for not one but two DVD players for her penthouse suite. Then she demanded a whole host of DVDs to watch... of herself! She also asked for six de-humidifiers to protect her voice, an extra suite to use as a giant wardrobe and a very fit porter to transfer her 43 suitcases up to her room.

In 2001 Mariah accepted an $80m deal from Virgin, the biggest record contract in history. The first project was to be movie and album Glitter. The film was panned by critics and the album failed to sell. Glitter was such a disaster that it nearly ruined parent company EMI Records, and Carey was dropped in early 2002 - at a cost to Virgin of $28m. Shortly afterwards, Mariah went into a painfully public breakdown. She suffered bizarre promotional appearances, and posted a string of rambling messages on her website.

She got her name from the song "They Call The Wind Maria" from the 1969 musical Paint Your Wagon.  The song containing her name, although spelt without the 'H', was a favourite of her mother.

Was born to an Irish-American opera singer mother and an African-American/Venezuelan engineer father.

Faced legal problems from several songwriters who claimed she plagiarized their melodies or lyrics; several cases were dismissed, while others were settled out of court.

Became embroiled in a custody case over her nephew Michael, whose mother (Carey's older sister Alison) was an AIDS-infected heroin addict.

In high school her nickname was Mirage because she would often be absent from classes.

She worked in a beauty salon for a day. The owner told Mariah that her name was to be Echo. She hated it and left.

In her high school year book sleeping late, corvettes and Italian men are listed as her likes.

The Fresh Air Fund called a camp after her-- Camp Mariah-- for inner-city kids who are unable to experience what life is like away from polluted, and crowded areas.