HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Mariah Carey says when the heat suddenly turned up in her relationship with Nick Cannon, the couple tried to keep the lid on their speedy courtship and top-secret wedding plans.
"We really kept the whole relationship aspect of it quiet," the 39-year-old singer reveals to Elle magazine. "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 first met in 2005 when Cannon presented her with an award at the Teen Choice Awards. When the sparks eventually began to fly, Carey says she received not one, but two proposals from the 27-year-old Cannon.
The first came one night while the couple was hanging out on the rooftop of Carey's Manhattan apartment. Suddenly, Cannon was proposing with a 17-carat diamond hidden inside a candy ring pop.
A few days later, Cannon was back at it again, this time, Carey says, "he sort of kidnapped me and took me on a helicopter ride."
"They've been calling me Cinderella since I first started out," the pop diva says of Cannon's fairytale style. "Most people would think, Okay, please! This doesn't happen in real life."
The romance is a far cry from Carey's split from Sony record exec Tommy Mottola, whom she married in 1993 at the tender age of 23.
"When I was in an unhappy place in my life," Carey says of her darker days, "I always wanted to be kidnapped. I just wanted a way out, but I didn't have one."
It's safe to say that Carey has more than recovered from the broken marriage, which ended in 1997, as well as her 2001 "emotional breakdown." She's been on a high ever since her 2005 album, "The Emancipation of Mimi," went on to become the year's top-selling release.
Now, with another hit record out, "E=MC²," and a fresh outlook on love, the Long Island-native appears destined to conquer anything in her path.
"She's one of the best singers in the world, but she's also one of the best songwriters in the world," Carey's longtime collaborator, Randy Jackson, tells Elle.
"Mariah's got that amazing buttery tone and then all of the vocal ability. That's what makes it so ungodly deadly," he continues. "It's instantly recognizable on the radio as a brand — and to be able to write like that? Dude! C'mon!"
Article © ASM — All Rights Reserved
- Comment
