ELLE MAGAZINE: New Cover with Mariah Carey

Sipping Gatorade Ice (is that dinner? Breakfast?) from a wineglass, Mariah reveals pages of her life as pure storybook. Her first marriage, to Mottola, at age 23, might be observed as a Rapunzel tale of princess trapped in a tower (or, more precisely, an enormous $10 million mansion in Bedford, Connecticut). “When I was in an unhappy place in my life,” Carey says of her past, “I always wanted to be kidnapped. I just wanted a way out, but I didn’t have one.” Ten years after her split with Mottola, handsome young prince Nick Cannon has come to the rescue. “He sort of kidnapped me and took me on a helicopter ride. Then he re-proposed.” Cannon’s first proposal had taken place on Carey’s roof in Manhattan a couple of evenings prior and involved the hiding of a 17-carat diamond ring inside a candy ring pop. “They’ve been calling me Cinderella since I first started out, so, of course, being Cinderella…” she says, laughing. “Most people would think, Okay, please! This doesn’t happen in real life.”

The newlyweds met in 2005 at the Teen Choice Awards, where Cannon (then most famous for the film Drumline and The Nick Cannon Show on Nickelodeon) presented her an award. Only recently, however, did they officially get romantically involved. “We really kept the whole relationship aspect of it quiet,” Carey says. “Therefore, we didn’t really ‘date,’ you know what I mean? Because that would have been not quiet or private. I think we didn’t want to give people a chance to be like, ‘What are you doing? What are you talking about? This is so quick…are you sure?’” The couple clandestinely both got their first tattoos before tying the knot—hers is a butterfly on the small of her back with “Mrs. Cannon” written down the center; his, a shoulder-spanning rendering of her name—to signify their love.

While rumors have flourished that the marriage might just be cleverly timed to help promote the new album, such a publicity stunt seems unlikely. It may be difficult for some to buy M.C.’s deceiving combination of glam diva meets naive sweetheart, but her consistently cute image is part of the reason for her continued success. According to the press, her worst offense during her 2001 “breakdown” was handing out Popsicles to teens on MTV’s Total Request Live while wearing a skimpy outfit—a far cry from Whitney Houston’s notorious battles with Bobby Brown and drug rehab. Unlike the tough chameleon Madonna, with whom she is often contrasted, Mariah has remained a vulnerable performer, more Marilyn Monroe than Mae West. (Incidentally, Carey paid over $600,000 to own Marilyn’s white piano.) Further, despite her sales records, Carey rarely gets credit for being a cultural force; yet listen to many of the contestants on American Idol—season three winner Fantasia Barrino comes to mind—and you’ll undoubtedly hear attempts at Carey’s signature melismatic (the art of moving a single syllable over multiple notes) vocal pyrotechnics accompanied by her note-trailing hand gestures.

(source)