She’s the songbird with the voice that gives us butterflies, but Mariah Carey’s latest hit is of the literary variety: Her recently released and much-buzzed-about memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, is No. 1 for nonfiction on the New York’s Times Bestsellers Print Hardcover list.
The news broke on Wednesday night (when many of us were distracted by the performance of another talented woman of color), and Carey quickly tweeted in celebration of the triumph, writing:
Wow. Stunned, humbled & grateful. Writing this memoir nearly consumed my life for the last three years. ❤️U MAD. to everyone who has taken the time to read my story & make this dream a reality. It almost makes it tolerable to have lived through these experiences! LOL
“The book, which details Carey’s romantic travails, her career ups and downs, the racism she experienced as a biracial child and much more, hit stores last week,” Billboard reminds us.
While some (seemingly including the magazine) may have thought the “UMAD” in Carey’s tweet was a jab at her detractors, it was no doubt a shoutout to her co-writer, veteran journalist, stylist and fashion activist Michaela Angela Davis, who helped bring Carey’s revealing and, at times, painful life story to the masses. (Davis is also known to many of her friends and followers as MAD—so Carey was essentially tweeting “Love u MAD.”)
Of working through Carey, Davis wrote: “There is beauty even through bleakness...celebrated like the family we have become.”