Maria Kelly, a 50-year-old American singer, was interviewed in Apple TV+'s Oprah Dialogues to reveal her difficult relationship with her family. "They just want to use me to make money, no matter where it comes from," Kelly said, "and if I hadn't been dragged by someone as an ATM machine with a wig, I wouldn't have gotten to where I am today." ”
Maria Carey's powerful vocals are the object of imitation by countless female singers, her vocal range is wide, known for songs such as "Hero" and "We Belong Together", she "can always write good melodies, fall from the highs of life to the lows, but get back on her feet as if she never missed a rhythm." ”
But behind the songs that have encouraged countless people are bloody scars. Siblings have been "peddling" Mariah Carey's story, and she has remained silent for years. "I don't want to say anything bad about anyone, and I've always tried to be fair, but I've always had someone else open up first." Maria Carey said the tabloids had been eyeing her "native family" for decades without sparing her miserable life.
Mariah Carey says she can also understand why siblings would do this. "When you connect with successful people, you're a target too, and you're vulnerable."
In Kelly's view, her birth was not accepted by her family from the beginning— she was born in Huntington, Governor Island, New York, in 1970, a mixed-race child born to a white mother and a black father, which deeply affected her life. Kelly is the third child in the family, her older siblings are much older than her, and she is unhappy that she has a lighter skin tone and hair.
Kelly's own childhood was defined by "trauma" and "violence." Her parents fell apart when she was three years old, her brother was "extremely violent", and her sister brought her countless "troubles and pains". "I have been very careful in describing it this way, and those who have traumatized me in my life have not given the same courtesy."
Her eight-year-old sister Alison had 12-year-old Mariah Kelly use Vicodin on drugs, gave her cocaine, burned her three times, and tried to sell her to pimps.
"We don't even know each other." Kelly said, "We didn't grow up together. And by the time I was born, they had been ruined. I always felt like an outsider at home. And when I became famous, they saw me as a 'get-rich-quick conduit'. ”
To her biological mother, Kelly has more mixed feelings.
She described her mother as both a "beauty" and a "beast." As a child, Kelly was always ignored by her mother, Patricia, and her mother kept her with insecure people, making her feel very "dirty" and emotionally insecure.
Her sister, Alison, later sued her mother, Patricia, forcing herself into a pedophile car and letting a pedophile molest herself at the age of 10. Growing up, the mother-daughter relationship was estranged for many years.
Kelly also never called her mother "Mommy", but directly called her "Patricia".
"From the very beginning, there was a huge role reversal in my relationship with my mother and I would always take care of her. Even though I was the youngest child in the family, I was the parent of everyone, which put a lot of pressure on people and caused a lot of resentment and jealousy within the family. ”
The family thinks of Kelly and always has this mentality: "What can we get from her?" "A lot of family members do rely on her for a living.
Kelly never felt safe as a result and "has been in a state of combat" for years." ”
In July 2001, Kelly was forced to be hospitalized due to an emotional crisis and poor physical and mental condition. She couldn't sleep for six days and had a great career to come to the Long Island house she had bought for her mother and sought her comfort.
When Kelly frantically washed dishes at her mother's house, her spirit broke down again, and her mother directly called the "911" police and asked the police to take Kelly away.
"She didn't comfort me , 'Everything is fine, I'll take care of you my daughter.' Instead, it's like, 'Oh no, you disobeyed me, and that's the result.' ’”
Kelly still remembers the moment she was taken away from her mother's house and sat in the back seat of the police car.
"I've never talked about it, and I just want to say that it felt a little better in that moment than it used to feel when I was with her and my siblings."
The family also didn't take Kelly's psychological problems seriously. "They're not really worried about fatigue in our country, they're just thinking of it as another 'solution' that they can profit from." Kelly said her mother insisted she didn't need to be hospitalized. "If they could give me time to rest, even for two days, I wouldn't be in such a state."
Kelly's father died in 2002, and her relationship with her mother remains a thorny issue to this day.
"I know what my mother expects," Kelly said of knowing what she could get and what she couldn't get from her. "You can't go to an ice cream stand and look for hot dogs pointlessly."
The suffocating atmosphere in the original family continued into Mariah Carey's first marriage. At the age of 18, she met Tommy Mottola, who was 22 years older than herself, and Tommy was the head of her record label at the time.
Kelly said she loved him because "he trusted me completely," but felt forced into marriage.
After marrying Tommy at the age of 23, she moved into her home in Bedford, New York, which was completely "armed and isolated" like a prison, and Kelly felt "extremely oppressed" at home. She knew she was once again being captured.
The "toxic" marriage lasted four years, and Mariah Carey finally plucked up the courage to walk out. She said she had now forgiven Tommy. Although the second marriage also led to divorce, she gave birth to twins.
"They help me heal from the pain of my childhood every day." Kelly said the child finally provided her with the "unconditional love" she had always wanted.
Compiled from foreign media
Image source: Yahoo News, CBS, The Sun
Editor: Wu Yu