Mariah Carey Shares Intimate Details About Her Relationship With Nick Cannon

Mariah released her memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey, where she opened up about her complicated relationship with Nick. From their first meeting to the bitter end, their romance was a messy one. Was it possible that jealously played a role in their split? After all, this legendary singer kept building up her credentials while her husband's career hit some roadblocks.

With so much talent in one house, things were sometimes tense. "Honestly, I think Nick and I could have worked it out between the two of us, but egos and emotions got inflamed (which can translate into many billable lawyer hours, and ultimately it did)," Mariah wrote following their announcement.

Besides being the first singer to have her first five singles top the Billboard charts, Mariah writes music, produces, and acts. Her voice is beautiful and strong — she has a five-octave range and heavily utilizes the whistle register. Mariah’s characteristic melismatic singing style, or vocal runs, makes her music extremely powerful. Granted, Nick is no slouch himself.

Though Mariah’s career has eclipsed Nick’s, he’s still a hard-working comedian, rapper, actor, and TV presenter. His career has leaned toward hosting lately, with his gigs on The Nick Cannon Show, Wild 'n Out, America's Got Talent, Lip Sync Battle Shorties, and The Masked Singer. But he may be most remembered for his ties to Carey, whether he likes it or not.

Their relationship started in 2008 and ended when the couple filed for divorce in late 2014. The official separation was dragged out until 2016 by intense court battles. Every step of this pairing was filled with drama — even in the beginning, they made decisions that shocked family and fans alike.

Mariah was already smitten with Nick when they met at the Teen Choice Awards. Nick presented Mariah with her surfboard prize and she mentioned that she’d heard he had ″all these nice things″ to say about her, which excited the pop star.

Mariah made sure to include Nick’s response in her book. ″With a genuine beaming smile and a flame in his eyes, he replied, 'If you give me a chance, I'll prove all of it is true,'″ Mariah wrote. ″A cute moment — very." Not long after, the couple took a massive risk.

After dating for just six weeks, they were married at Mariah’s Bahamas property in April 2008. "It was more that whimsical fantasy idea of let’s have as much fun as we possibly can and when it no longer feels like fun, when it feels like a task and a job, then we should amicably be able to move on,” Nick said.

Though things eventually fell apart, the two did have chemistry, which helped keep them together. Nick also understood the expectations of dating one of the most successful singers of all time. “I always used to say it worked so well because it was a healthy balance,” he said.

“I had no problem falling back. It was never a competition with me,” Nick said. “It was like, ‘I’ll turn mine off so she can turn hers on.’ I was comfortable in myself and who I was.” Even with this respect, stress from their busy lives found its way between them.

Their fraternal twins, Moroccan and Monroe, were born just three years into their relationship, adding to the stress. “Making the necessary adult adjustments to being working parents in entertainment took its toll on our relationship, and the end of our marriage came fast, as it began,” Mariah wrote.

″Our desire to have children became a force of nature and why we got married so quickly," she wrote. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to keep them coupled, but now the two are forever linked since they share children.

Mariah still respects Nick as a person and parent — especially after her marriage to Tommy Mottola from 1993-1998. "You might want to picture a child bride," she said in an interview. "There was a conscious effort to keep me as this all-American, whatever that means, girl.”

Mariah examined her Tommy partnership in great detail, and why it was such a damaging, controlling relationship. Nick was someone who ″felt safe″ to her because ″the power dynamics between us felt even.″ It wasn’t a contest for the spotlight.

″He was a good guy. He was faith-based. He was ambitious,″ Mariah wrote. ″He had been in the entertainment industry for a long time, so he understood the madness. He paid attention to me." Unlike Tommy, Nick was Mariah’s supporter, not controller.

Nick and Mariah have long since moved on to new romantic partners. Nick is currently dating three separate women (who are aware of each other) and Mariah is in the midst of an on-and-off relationship with Bryan Tanaka. But the two stars' lives are still every much connected.

Even after settling their divorce, Nick and Mariah see each other quite a bit, since they’re managing co-parenting their children. “We’re doing whatever we can to make sure their upbringing is as healthy as can possibly be and that we’re as healthy as we can possibly be,” Nick said.

When Nick was asked about their marriage dissolving, he didn’t agree with Mariah. “My ego outside the house was grand but in the house it was healthy. I was there to be in support of whatever she wanted to do,” Nick said.

Even after their divorce, Nick is still in awe of his ex-wife. “I mean, it’s Mariah Carey. How am I supposed to be?” Nick said. “She’s one of the most talented women to ever [be on] this planet. I can’t hold a candle to that woman.”

Through the fighting and tabloid ugliness, Mariah and Nick stayed strong for Monroe and Moroccan. “It was tough,” Mariah wrote. “We both wanted to make sure everything was cool for our family. We will always be family, and we make it work.″ Behind the scenes, though, Mariah was struggling. The tumultuous divorce caused older memories to resurface, ones she hadn’t dared to think about for decades.

Growing up in a family dynamic where she felt like everything was stacked against her, Mariah’s vocal gift remained her light in the darkness. Her mother Patricia was a vocal coach and opera singer, and by age two, her youngest child easily mimicked her operatic style. Everyone knew Mariah was special, though that wasn’t always a good thing.

Tensions existed before Mariah entered the picture. Patrica’s family cut her off entirely when she married a Black man, aeronautical engineer Alfred Carey. Together they had three children, a son, Morgan, a daughter Allison, and then finally Mariah, who arrived seven years after her sister. They lived in the affluent, mostly white community of Huntington, Long Island, where it was clear they weren't welcome.

As an interracial family, the Careys received threats and were targeted with hate crimes. Neighbors took extreme measures in terror, poisoning the family dog and setting fire to their car. Ultimately, racism was one of the main factors that tore apart the marriage. Three-year-old Mariah went with her mother after the divorce; her suffering was just beginning.

Every part of Mariah’s relationship with her mother was complicated, down to things as simple as caring for her daughter’s hair. Patricia, as a white woman, didn’t learn how to properly care for her biracial child’s hair, so she ignored it. Mariah’s lighter color hair also made her the target of negative comments from other members of the family. She felt completely isolated.

In a 2020 interview with Oprah Winfrey for her series The Oprah Conversations, Carey explained “I would say the neglect was on several levels. I always felt dirty, I didn't feel put together, and [she was] leaving me with people who were not safe." Not belonging was a running theme for the young singer, and those feelings were echoed in her sibling relationships.

“We don’t even really know each other … we didn’t grow up together, but we did. Like, they were on their journeys, by the time I got into the world, they had already been damaged, in my opinion,” Mariah said of her siblings in the Oprah interview. The age gap divided them and, of course, her singing talents led to jealous hostilities.

Mariah explained that her siblings have a skewed view of her experience, "They just grew up with the experience of living with a Black father and a white mother together as a family and I was for the most part living with my mother, which they saw as easier, but in reality it was not," she told Oprah. The resentments manifested into cruel treatment.

In her book, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, she opened up about the parts of her past that she's never publicly acknowledged. “When I was 12 years old, my sister drugged me with valium, offered me a pinky nail full of cocaine, inflicted me with third-degree burns, and tried to sell me out to a pimp," she wrote, and their dynamic only worsened from there.

Despite the instability she experienced at home, Mariah chased her dream. Her five-range vocal octave and whistle tone made her talent impossible to ignore. In her teens, she often missed school to record demos at local studios, spending her alone time writing songs and fantasizing about her future.

"I realized, one day when I grow up, and I do what I'm dreaming of doing, which will happen, and I won't be in these sad circumstances forever, but one day I'm just going to remember what this feels like," Carey told Oprah. That break finally happened for Mariah when she graduated high school and moved to New York City.

One fateful night, Mariah and her friend, fellow singer Brenda K. Starr, attended a party hosted by CBS Records, where they hoped to make important connections. Mariah managed to pass her demo tape along to the President of Sony Music, Tommy Mottola, and as he listened to it on his ride home, he knew he’d found a star.

After that, the singer’s life was never the same. Mottola tracked her down and she started making her debut album Mariah Carey. She was an instant hitmaker, and still holds the world record as the only artist to have all of her first five singles reach the number-one Billboard spot. Yet, her life was still heaped in toxicity.

Mariah's success instantly shifted her family dynamics. "There's been a huge role reversal in our relationship since the beginning since I first started [singing] I've been the go-to, that matriarch person, even as the youngest child in the family," she explained to Oprah. The pressure to take care of everyone coupled with the envy that came along with it nearly broke her.

Navigating her family relationships was just one layer of Mariah Carey’s day-to-day. At 23 years old, just three years after her debut album skyrocketed her to fame, Mariah married the head of her record label — Tommy Mottola. Their relationship, with Mottola 20 years her senior, was less of a partnership and more a crushing exercise in control.

In her book, Carey revealed her nickname for the mansion she shared with Mottola, which she ironically referred to as “Sing Sing" — a play on the name of the maximum-security prison and her own musical prowess. While they are on good terms today and both acknowledge their own roles in the failures of their marriage, after five years Mariah had to break free.

Another secret spilled in her book was the high-profile affair she had towards the end of her marriage that resulted in two iconic hits. Both of the ballads “My All” and “The Roof” were written about her relationship with baseball player Derek Jeter. While their love didn’t last, and she still had more pain ahead, she walked away with great memories and even better music.

Music is how Mariah copes, but it's also her means of celebration, particularly during the holidays. The hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is the unofficial anthem of every holiday season and for good reason. Not only is it a great song, but it encompasses the small moments of joy that mattered to the singer so much as a child.

Still, there were some struggles that even music couldn’t heal. After finally getting control of her own artistic vision, writing songs that explored her sexuality, and adopting more of an R&B sound, it seemed like Mariah’s career was finally heading in the direction she wanted. But the platinum artist was edging towards her breaking point. 

In 2001, right before the release of her film and accompanying album Glitter, the stress left Carey overwhelmed. She retreated to her mother’s house on Long Island hoping to recoup, though ultimately, it ended with a breakdown while washing the dishes. Subsequently, her mother called the police, and Mariah was whisked away to a mental health facility.

Rumors and headlines swirled about the situation, but it was far deeper than just another pop star with underlying issues. To Carey, it was one of the most defining moments of her life. While she was experiencing mental health problems, there was nuance to her pain. She felt an instantaneous power shift when her mother spoke to the police, and all of it was too much to bear.

The episode left Carey with clarity and a diagnosis she hid for nearly 20 years — bipolar II disorder. She got therapy, started medication, and made decisions about the dynamics of her family. Today, Mariah refers to her siblings as "ex-brother" and "ex-sister" and calls her mother Patricia, decisions she explained in her Oprah interview.

"When there are people that are connected to you as a person that achieves a certain level of success, you are a target, you're vulnerable. But I wouldn't have gone here if things hadn't been done to me. If I hadn't been dragged by certain people and treated as an ATM with a wig on," Carey explained. She had to step away from her family.

Carey told Oprah that she will always take care of her mother, but parenting twins Moroccan and Monroe highlights the nurturing she didn’t receive. The feeling she felt growing up, “of when a storm is about to happen ... it's a scary thing but you sense it and you learn to navigate your behavior because of it," said the star, is something her own children won’t experience.

The introduction of The Meaning of Mariah Carey reads, "I offer this book in large part to finally emancipate that scared little girl inside of me. It's time to give her a voice, to let her tell her story exactly as she experienced it." Pouring her truth onto the pages released years of pent-up feelings that several of her popstar peers must relate to.