What is Mariah Carey’s net worth?

Mariah Carey is a highly successful American singer, songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actress with a net worth of $340 million. She has sold over 200 million albums worldwide, making her one of the 15 best-selling musical artists in history. She has won five Grammys, 10 AMAs, and 15 Billboard Music Awards.

After struggling to get anyone to listen to her demo in the 80s, she caught the attention of Brenda K. Starr, who introduced her to the “right” people. She signed with Columbia Records and dominated the charts throughout the 90s. Her career hit a rough patch in the early 2000s when she wanted more creative control, and her relationship with Columbia and her husband fell apart. She signed with Virgin Records, but her only project under the label, “Glitter”, was panned by critics and ignored by the public. She made a career comeback with her tenth album, “The Emancipation of Mimi”, which became the top-selling album by a female in 2005 and sold nearly 8 million copies worldwide. She has continued to remain musically relevant and popular since then.

Mariah Carey’s Early Life and Career

Mariah Carey was born on March 27, 1970 in Huntington, New York. Her parents separated when she was three years old. She started writing songs and poems while in high school, where she befriended Gavin Christopher and Ben Margulies. Together, they created a full-length demo that eventually made its way to pop singer Brenda K. Starr. Starr passed the demo to Tommy Mottola, the head of Columbia Records, who was convinced that Carey would become a star after hearing the first two songs. It took two weeks to track her down, but when Mottola signed Carey to a record deal and assembled a team to plot her commercial debut.

Mariah Carey’s Album Success

Mariah Carey’s self-titled debut album, released in 1990, was slow to gain sales but eventually became certified 9X platinum in the US alone, selling more than 15 million copies worldwide. Her third album, 1993’s “Music Box,” spent 128 weeks on the Billboard chart and sold an astonishing 28 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. Her subsequent albums continued to achieve great success, selling 15 million, 20 million, 10 million, and 8 million copies worldwide, respectively.

Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You”

Mariah’s Christmas album is most notable for featuring “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” The song is one of the best-selling and most-profitable singles of all time with global sales of 16 million and counting. It is featured in dozens of Christmas movies and is a massive hit around the holidays on streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora.

Reportedly written in just 15 minutes, the song generates an estimated $600,000 per year in royalties for Mariah and producer Walter Afanasieff. To date, the song has generated over $60 million in gross royalties.

Mariah Carey’s Disastrous $100 Million Contract with Virgin Music

In 2001, Mariah Carey signed a record-setting $100 million, five-album contract with Virgin Music, which adjusted for inflation would be $150 million today. Her first album under the contract, “Glitter,” was released in August 2001 as a soundtrack to a movie of the same name. However, the film and album were both panned by critics and audiences.

Shortly before the film’s release, Mariah suffered from extreme exhaustion and was hospitalized for a physical and emotional breakdown. While “Glitter” eventually sold three million copies, it was a financial disaster for Mariah and Virgin Music.

Desperate to end the contract, Virgin paid Mariah $28 million to terminate the agreement early. In total, Mariah was paid nearly $50 million for producing only one album under the contract.

Mariah Carey’s Record Deals and Earnings

After being dropped by Virgin, Mariah Carey signed a $24 million, five-album deal with Island Records. Her Island albums sold moderately well, with her biggest hit being 2005’s “The Emancipation of Mimi” which sold 10 million copies worldwide.

Mariah released one album under Def Jam and then was signed by Epic Records in 2015 where she remains today.

In 2012 she earned $18 million to appear on one season of American Idol.

In 2015 she signed a $30 million contract to undertake a two-year Las Vegas residency at Caesars Palace. This helped her become one of the highest-earning women in music for the year with $27 million in total earnings.

Marriages and Relationships

Mariah Carey has been married twice in her life. Her first marriage was to music manager/producer Tommy Mottola in 1993, but they ended up divorcing in 1998. She then went on to marry actor Nick Cannon in 2008, and they had two children together, twins born in April 2011. However, they got divorced in 2016.

Aside from her marriages, Carey has also been engaged and dated other high-profile men. She was briefly engaged to Australian billionaire James Packer in 2016 and had a long-term relationship with singer Luis Miguel between 1998 and 2001.

Mariah Carey’s Real Estate Portfolio

Mariah Carey has owned multiple properties throughout the years, including a 51-acre estate in Westchester County, New York, which she shared with her ex-husband Tommy Mottola. They sold the property in 1998 to financier Nelson Peltz, who unfortunately saw it destroyed by fire a year later. Mariah has also split her time between a rented home in Beverly Hills and a triplex apartment in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood.

Aside from her primary residences, Mariah also owns a vacation property in the Bahamas. In November 2021, she purchased a 4.2-acre property in the Sandy Springs suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, which includes a 16,000 square-foot Colonial mansion. The property was listed for sale in September 2022 for $6.5 million.

Overall, Mariah Carey’s real estate portfolio is quite impressive and adds to her already substantial net worth.

Mariah Carey’s Net Worth

Contrary to popular belief, Mariah Carey is not worth $520 million. According to her own legal filings during her 2015 divorce proceedings, when Carey married Nick Cannon in 2008, her net worth was $150 million while Cannon’s was less than $500,000. The filings also revealed that Carey earned a total of $6.3 million in 2014 while Cannon earned $2.7 million. The details of their settlement were undisclosed, but Cannon was given a 2012 Ferrari and ordered to pay $5,000 per month to a trust for their twins.

Based on these figures, Carey’s gross earnings over the past decade would need to exceed $1 billion for her to be worth $520 million today, which is not the case.

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