Mariah Carey is opening up about narrowly missing out on being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
The “We Belong Together” singer was announced as one of this year’s nominees for the Hall of Fame in February alongside Cher, Ozzy Osbourne and Mary J. Blige, but didn’t make the cut when the inductees were announced in April.
“My thoughts are: I didn’t get in,” Carey said in an interview with The Los Angeles Times published on Wednesday, October 30, when asked about the snub. “Everybody was calling me going, ‘I think you’re getting in!’ and so I was excited about it. But then it didn’t happen.”
She then quipped, “My lawyer got into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame before me.”
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Carey was referring to entertainment lawyer Allen Grubman, who has also represented the likes of Lady Gaga, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2022 as a recipient of the Ahmet Ertegun Award, which acknowledges non-performers whose work has had a lasting impact on the music industry.
In her interview with the L.A. Times, Carey, 55, also spoke about only winning five Grammy awards in her career.
“They gave me two Grammys when I first started out,” she said. “Then one year — huge year for me, career-wise — I had like six nominations with the Daydream album and ‘One Sweet Day’ and ‘Always Be My Baby’ and ‘Fantasy.’ All those songs in a row ended up being so big that you just thought, ‘OK, at least “One Sweet Day” is gonna win best duet or something.’ Then I sat there the whole time and I didn’t get anything. I was like, This is not fun. But what can I do? Be a sore loser and say, ‘F the Grammys?’”
“Whatever. If they give me more Grammys, I’ll like them more,” Carey joked.
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Carey recently opened up about her Grammys record during an October 16 episode of the “Las Culturistas” podcast hosted by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers.
Carey won her first two Grammys in 1991, where she was nominated for five awards. That year, she took home the awards for Best New Artist and Best Pop Female Vocal Performance for “Vision of Love.” Her next Grammy wins came in 2006 when she won two awards for “We Belong Together” and the Best Contemporary R&B Album nod for The Emancipation of Mimi.
“They scammed me. They toy with me” Carey said, adding that she was surprised that her 1997 album, Butterfly, which she told Yang and Rogers was “probably my best album,” went with “zero accolades.”