Oprah sits with Mariah Carey to discuss her book, and it's a mess

Mariah Carey has a new book coming out, and the Lambs were a little in their feelings that due to Miss Corona being on her book tour, that we wouldn't get one from Mariah, and there would be a lack of interviews and national promo for it. But surprisingly, (or not, seeing as Mariah's team has been on their shit ever since Stella got booted), Mariah appeared on The Oprah Conversation for Apple TV to discuss the book in a one hour sit down with Oprah herself.

Y'all with Apple TV can watch it. Y'all without Apple TV can YouTube search. I'm not going to bother embedding the video in this post, because uploads of this interview are being pulled down so damn fast.

A fair amount of what was disclosed in the interview were things that I think most die-hard Lambs would know; such as her non-existent relationship with her ex-sister, her not fully reconciling with her father until he was on his deathbed, Tommy Mottola being controlling, and the struggles she faced with her racial identity. But there are revelations which come to light. One of the biggest being that Mariah didn't and still doesn't have the best relationship with her mother. This surprised the Lambily, because from the outside, they seemed cool. Mariah and her mother Patricia done interviews together, one of which was with Oprah back in 1999 (although watching it now, you can sense tension and something not being quite right). She appeared on one of her songs for her second Christmas album and even performed it live with her. So hearing Mariah say (and I'm paraphrasing) 'That bitch neglected to me, we don't see eye to eye' was a shock. There were also some deep dives into Mariah's childhood which sounded traumatic as fuck and sheds a great deal of light on the hows and whys of the Mariah we've grown to know or thought that we knew.

But the biggest shock of all was how bad the whole interview was in general. Shit was terrible. I know Oprah is seen as the queen of the talk show and interviewing, but I've always found her interview style grating, because she always spins everything back to her. Oprah kept cutting Mariah off, making it about herself, plugging her book club and books she'd read, and the energy throughout the whole thing was just off. There was just this air of irritability to Oprah, like she wasn't fully invested in this interview or the book. The whole thing seemed like an inconvenient obligation to her. And Mariah herself seemed to be in this place of being grateful for the opportunity and being respectful of Oprah, but not really feeling it herself. Mariah was tense, fumbling over her words and struggling to articulate herself. She seemed uncomfortable throughout the entire thing.

I'm sure the Lambily will love this interview, and if nothing else it's great promo for Mariah's book. But Mariah deserved better than this. Hopefully we'll get a sit down interview where Mariah feels more relaxed and the interviewer isn't just aggressively coaxing information out of her, which is basically what Oprah did without needed to. I mean...Mariah has written a whole damn book and is sat with you to discuss all that's in it. It's not like there's anything you need to pry from a bitch.

The Meaning of Mariah Carey is out now.

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