Mariah Carey Connection

She wears bra tops and hot pants on stage but Mariah Carey says she is a prude and “buttoned-up” girl.

The 37-year-old singer revealed her shyness about sex by saying: “I’m Mary Poppins: I’m what the buttoned-up girls are supposed to be.”

In an interview with US magazine, Allure, Carey says that she is “a freakin’ prude.”

Mariah also says she is a child at heart who once let actress Lindsay Lohan and singer Sean Lennon hold a jam session in her Mermaid Room.

Well known for her sexy image, Carey told the April issue of Allure she has a low self-esteem and is looking for true love.

The singer says: “I’ve always had really low self-esteem and I still do.

“What’s weird about that is being onstage and the love that you get, and the adoration that you feel, from your real fans.

“It’s hard for a partner to compete - just imagine.”

Carey also talks about her five-year marriage to one-time Sony music executive, Tommy Mottola who is 20 years her senior and helped launch her career. The relationship ended in acrimony despite the 1993 fairytale wedding and living in a $10 million mansion.

Carey says she felt so imprisoned at their home that she nicknamed it Sing Sing, after the New York prison.

When she left Mottola, the singer says: “I had to make a decision - either lose myself completely or learn to stand up for myself.”

But despite dating a series of men over the past decade the New York native says she is still looking for love and would happily marry again.

Carey, who has been linked to rapper Eminem, says she is looking for “someone who I would know: ‘OK they’re going to take care of me emotionally. They’re going to understand who I am’…

“That’s a big deal for me - feeling like somebody else can’t fully understand me because they’re not in show business.

“It shouldn’t matter, but it does, because the energy it takes to be ‘on’ is a lot.”

Carey has had her fair share of ex-boyfriends who live in the media spotlight. They include New York Yankees baseball star Derek Jeter and Latin crooner Luis Miguel.

But, although she is adored by millions around the world and is the best-selling female artist of all time, she still carries around childhood wounds. These include her feelings about her racial identity.

Born to an Irish-American woman and African-American/ Venezuelan father, the singer has spoken openly about being mixed-race.

In her house hangs a photo of her as a pre-teen - wearing a bikini with her natural curly hair flowing. During the interview she apparently points to the picture and says: “See, this was before I developed a complete complex about the way I looked.

“People still get confused about my ethnicity.

“OK, so my hair is blown out [straight] today - does that mean I look more white or more black?

“I don’t know. I feel like a lot of people think: ‘Oh, she had this easy fairy tale-princess life’.

“Not to quote Swingers, but ‘we all have stories’. I got a freakin’ mini-series in me.”

That mini-series includes the oft-repeated tale of Mottola signing the 18-year-old Carey on to a recording contract after receiving her demo tape at a party. Following the 1990 debut hit single Vision of Love, a string of number ones followed.

In the mid-Nineties she left Mottola and ended her relationship with Sony, signing on with Virgin Records. But that multi-million deal came crashing down after the failure of Glitter - her first leading role in a movie and the album of the same name.

Released days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 both film and CD tanked and Carey had what was seen to be a public breakdown. It was, however, exhaustion, the singer says.

Known for her dedication and non-stop hard work, Carey says: “It’s not that difficult to become exhausted.

“I mean I have three personal assistants just to keep up with my schedule.”

At the time of her 2001 bout of exhaustion the singer says she couldn’t help but read what the press was reporting about her, including rumours she had attempted suicide. She says: “I spent seven hours one time reading all the press just to see what they were saying.

“We were going to Puerto Rico, and they’d be like: ‘She’s in the hospital in England’.

“Literally, we’d be sitting there on a catamaran.

“I guess people can just say what they want and until you have a humongous success they don’t believe you can be happy.”

Carey says she is taking time out of her schedule now to relax and despite spending most of 2007 working on her new album, E=MC2, found time to go on holiday with friends.

“You get one vacation a year,” she says, “and if that’s going to be filled with weird moments or not being happy we don’t want that.

“We want festive moments of ting, ting, ting - yah.”

The interview also shines a light on the private world of Mariah Carey.

Pleased with the results she got when working with a personal trainer on the Caribbean island of St Barts, she flew him back with her to New York. She says: “I don’t know why everyone thinks I lost 30lbs.

“This trainer has actually helped me reshape my arms. That’s where I gained most of my weight - upper-body.

“That’s just one thing you have to lose weight for. With this whole steroid crap, that’s crazy.

“I’m almost on the verge where I’d be too muscular if I was going to do a thing like that.”

Nicknamed Tinker Bell (after the Peter Pan character) by her friends, Miss Carey also sees herself as “eternally 12″ even though she’s pushing 40. Like many girlie girls she loves rainbows and butterflies.

Lindsay Lohan and Sean Lennon once had a rock session in her aquatic-themed Mermaid Room. She says of Lennon: “He was playing my Hello Kitty guitar.”

Carey has an estimated 1,000 pairs of shoes in her New York pad, including designer labels such as Manolo Blahniks, Jimmy Choos and Louis Vuittons.

She also has a Jacuzzi on her roof from which she has a beautiful view of New York City. She says it is her “little area where I lounge looking out…[at] the Empire State Building and…the Chrysler Building.

She dubs the area “Mimi’s Oasis” - Mimi being another one of her nicknames.

Source: Showbiz Spy