Mariah Carey has admitted being “pure Irish” was central to her family’s identity but told how her mother rebelled against it by marrying her father.
The star, who grew up as a biracial Irish-American in New York, opens up about the tumultuous relationship with her mum Patricia, 83, in her new book The Meaning of Mariah Carey.
She also discusses abuse, infidelity, racism and more in the tell-all release.
Mariah’s mum was one of three children raised by a widowed Irish Catholic woman.
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.
“She was extremely gifted and driven.
“Winning a scholarship to the prestigious Juilliard School for music, she would go on to sing with the New York City Opera. My mother built an exciting, artsy, bohemian life in New York City.
“She was in the downtown scene and dated a diverse cast of men by whom her mother would have been mortified.
“Her pure Irish Catholic mother wouldn’t approve of her dating anyone who wasn’t lily-white. An Italian guy would have been a problem, a Jewish man, a tragedy.
“My grandmother would’ve come completely undone if she knew my mother had had a steamy affair with a rich, older Lebanese man before she fell in love with, and married, a man her mother could not even conceive of.
“My father. A beautiful, complicated black man.
“Talking to a black man was considered a shame; befriending one, an outrage; carrying on with one, a major scandal, but marrying one?
“That was an abomination. It was the ultimate humiliation.”
Despite documenting the turbulent times, mum-of two and twice-divorced Mariah, 50, said she still longs for the day the mother and daughter can patch up their differences.
Paying tribute to Patricia in the
dedication of her book, the singer-
songwriter added: “And to Pat, my mother, who, through it all, I do believe actually did the best she could. I will love you the best I can, always.”
