Singing superstar Mariah Carey has launched a surprising new brand - and there's an Irish link.
The 'All I Want for Christmas' songstress is hoping that there will be plenty of her new product under trees this year as she announced a 'Black Irish'.
It is a range of Irish cream liqueurs that Carey launched yesterday in a nod to her heritage.
In a post on Twitter, accompanied by the diva in a sparkling gown on a gorgeous beach, she wrote: "Introducing Black Irish. Two years in the making. Truly a cause for celebration!!!"
Black Irish comes in three flavours: Original, salted caramel, and white chocolate.
The products have already gone on sale in the US at a price of $28.99, and although they are not available here yet, it's surely only a matter of time until they hit Irish shelves.
Carey, 51, grew up as a biracial Irish-American in New York.
Her mother, Patricia Hickey, was an opera singer who was born and raised in the US to parents who came from Co Cork.
Her father, Alfred Roy Carey, was an engineer of African American and Venezuelan descent.
In her new book released last year, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the star admitted being “pure Irish” was central to her family’s identity but told how her mother rebelled against it by marrying her father.
Discussing what her heritage meant to her, the book reads : “To a certain extent, I know how my mother became who she is. Her mother certainly didn’t understand her.
“And her father never had a chance to know her; he died while her mother was pregnant with her.
“My mother was known as the “dark one” because her hair wasn’t blond and her eyes were a mix of brown and green, not pure blue like her brother’s and sister’s.
“Blue eyes were a symbol of the purity of whiteness, and being of 100 percent “pure” Irish descent was central to her mother’s entire identity.
“To my mother’s mother, all “others” were below the Irish. But black? Black people were always at the absolute bottom of the order.”
Mariah’s mother was disowned by her family after eloping with a black man, her father Alfred Roy Carey.
Describing the opera singer of Cork descent as a “rebel”, she said: “My mother not only ignored the moral code of her hometown, she rebelled against it, later becoming active in the civil rights movement.
“Young Patricia had big dreams—many of which she realized."
