The Grammy-winning singer opened up to Gayle King about writing new music, grieving the losses of her mother and sister and sparking new dating rumors.
Gayle
Best-selling artist of all time. Yes, you are Mariah Carey.
This week she's dropping her 16th studio album aptly titled Here For It All.
She's lived a whole lot of life since her last release, winning several Icon Awards, grieving the loss of her mother and her sister on the same day, going through a very public breakup and sparking new dating rumors.
So first on CBS Morning she said, hey why don't you guys come over and talk to me? We said yes.
We visited Mariah Carey at her home recording studio in California for a candid conversation about life and music. We began though with a sneak preview of some of her new songs.
Gayle
My favorite line is I'm a bad b**** but I'm good company
Mariah
And that's us both!
Gayle
Mariah Carey's lyrics leave little to the imagination. On her new album Here For It All, her pen is as sharp as ever.
Miss Carey, the song I Won't Allow It.
Mariah
Ahan
Gayle
Those lyrics I kind of went ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch. This is the dagger to me. Can't obtain any
Mariah
...accutane.
Should have been more proactive.
Gayle
Wanted the fame, used my name. Bet you thought you could do that.
I won't entertain...
Mariah
...all your narcissistic ways. I won't allow it.
Gayle
Did you have a specific person in mind or was that just a random thought?
Mariah
There was a specific person.
Gayle
There was a picture?
Mariah
Internally.
Gayle
There was a picture? Why did you want to include that one?
Mariah
I liked it.
I like the vibe of it, you know, but it's, it's a little saucy.
Gayle
I always hear people are very intentional, Mariah, when they put an album together, the order of the songs.
Mariah
The last song on the album I decided first.
I was like the last song was going to be Here For It All and I'm going to make it the title track.
It's just something that feels good to me and I didn't want people to miss it.
Gayle
It's been seven years since Carey's last release.
Was this a difficult album for you to write?
Mariah
Parts of it. Going through all that other stuff while making the album, that was difficult.
Gayle
How did you navigate that and how did you process that for yourself?
Mariah
I don't know how I processed it.
I just know that it was extremely difficult for me to navigate and it was tough because I have always had an interesting relationship with my mother.
Gayle
Carey wrote very candidly about her mother in her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey.
Mariah
"Our relationship is a prickly rope of pride, pain, shame, gratitude, jealousy, admiration and disappointment."
It hasn't been easy, but towards the end, I was with her the time.
Gayle
Were you?
Mariah
Yeah, I was with her the whole time. I feel better about that, but it was tough.
My sister, I hadn't seen in years and I feel really badly about that as well, but that's because I tend to have a guilt complex about everything. It's tough. My sister had an extremely hard life.
Gayle
Do you feel you made peace with your mom?
Mariah
I do. She said a couple of things to me that were very healing for what I needed and I felt that that was the right thing to do.
Gayle
Carey credits her mother, who was an opera singer, as her first musical inspiration.
Mariah
It was interesting just now when I was in London, I was out in front of the hotel and there were some people waiting for me to sign stuff and this one girl had my mother's album, which is here somewhere. My mother made an album in the 70s.
Gayle
Somebody had the album?
Mariah
They had the album and she goes to me, the little girl goes, can you sign this? It's very fragile.
I said, yes, it is fragile. May I have it?
Gayle
You said may I have it?
Mariah
Yes, she gave it to me.
Gayle
Like she has in most major moments in her life, Carey says she turned to music. Her new album mixes the classic R&B ballads that she's known for with something more.
How do you describe the sound to you?
Mariah
I would say it's new Mariah, but still sounds like Mariah, but there's a little twist to it that makes it a little bit different.
Gayle
Added to the new sound is Grammy-winning artist Anderson Pack.
He collaborated with her on several songs on the album and is featured on the next single. How did it come to be? It's you and Anderson Pack together?
Mariah
Yes.
Gayle
Did you reach out to him? Did he reach out to you?
Mariah
I reached out to him.
Gayle
Why him?
Mariah
He's brilliant.
Gayle
That's a good reason.
Mariah
He's really a great artist.
Gayle
And now, you know, there are pictures of you all holding hands. Is this just a...
Mariah
He just likes to hold my hand. He just grabs my hand. I don't know what he's doing.
Gayle
I think holding hands is very nice. Are you saying it's just strictly we're just friends, but because now people are cheering for you, thinking, I hope this is a thing, or maybe it's not a thing. How do you see it?
Mariah
He's a hand-holding club.
Gayle
Is that what you want to call it? A hand-holding club?
Mariah
The hand-holding club.
Gayle
Okay, but this is how the rumors start because he was there at Christmas and everybody knows what Christmas means to you.
Mariah
Yes.
Gayle
So when they saw him with Mariah at Christmas, then people thought, oh, this must be something serious.
Mariah
Yeah.
Gayle
You can share or not share. It's up to you.
Mariah
Well, they better know that it's something special. It's Christmas.
Gayle
You know what I mean. The fact that you allowed him to come.
Mariah
He enjoyed it.
Gayle
Did you enjoy it?
Mariah
I did! There's a hot tub there. It was nice.
Gayle
The singer is also balancing being a mom of two teens. The twins are now 14.
I'm curious about you and your two children and how you navigate, because you're a co-parent with Nick Cannon, how you navigate co-parenting when his life is so public.
Mariah
I kind of feel like it's best if I don't talk about him because he can just be in his own world. No offense to him.
Gayle
No offense to him.
Carey's extended family includes her fans, or as she affectionately calls them, her lambs. This is what somebody wrote me just today about you.
They said, what I love about her, through all her ups and downs, she comes back out with her head up and with good lighting and keeps moving forward. Because there's a line in there where you talk about gruesome fall. It's not terrible fall, bad fall.
Why did you write the word gruesome fall, Mariah?
Mariah
I wasn't going to use gruesome fall. Because I dreamed a greater dream.
I fight a greater fight. Survived a gruesome fall.
Gayle
Survived a gruesome fall.
Mariah
Yeah.
Because it was just how I was feeling about myself and little stuff I had been through. And yeah, I mean, nothing is impossible. That one hits me at the heart.
Gayle
Do you believe nothing is impossible?
Mariah
I actually do. It's a feeling that you have to force that you keep within you.
You know what I mean?
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Don't forget to checkout "Here For It All," the new album by the legendary singer songwriter Mariah Carey, out 26 September, 2025. Pre-order now!
"Here For It All," features award winning "Type Dangerous" & new single "Sugar Sweet."