For years, fans have wondered why Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon divorced. Now, the “We Belong Together” singer is finally opening up about her breakup in her new memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, which hit shelves on Tuesday, September 29.
In the The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the “Vision of Love” singer revealed that her marriage with Cannon took a turn for the worse after the couple welcomed their first children in 2011. (The couple are parents to 9-year-old fraternal twins, son Moroccan Scott Cannon and Monroe Cannon.) “Making the necessary adult adjustments to being working parents in entertainment took its toll on our relationship, and the end of our marriage came fast, as it began,” she wrote.
The “Touch My Body” singer also confessed that her and Cannon’s marriage “could have worked out,” but in the end, it was their personalities that made them incompatible.
″Honestly, I think Nick and I could have worked it out between the two of us, but egos and emotions got inflamed (which can translate into many billable lawyer hours, and ultimately it did),″ she wrote. ″It was tough. We both wanted to make sure everything was cool for our family. We will always be family, and we make it work.″
Carey and Cannon met in 2005 after he presented her with a surfboard at the Teen Choice Awards. The couple married in 2008 before their divorce in 2016. In The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the “Hero” singer revealed that she was uninterested in becoming a mother when she met Cannon, but that all changed when she fell in love. ″Our desire to have children became a force of nature and why we got married so quickly,” she wrote.
The Grammy winner also opened up about the first time she met Cannon. She revealed that when the two first met, she told him that she had heard he said “all these nice things” about her. ″With a genuine beaming smile and a flame in his eyes, he replied, ‘If you give me a chance, I’ll prove all of it is true,’″ Carey wrote. ″A cute moment—very.”
Though their marriage didn’t work out, Carey and Cannon continue to co-parent their twins. In the book, Carey confessed that she “felt safe” with the comedian, which was a different feeling than her allegedly controlling ex-husband, Tommy Mottola.
″He was a good guy. He was faith-based. He was ambitious,″ she wrote. ″He had been in the entertainment industry for a long time, so he understood the madness. He paid attention to me.”
The Meaning of Mariah Carey is available to purchase on Amazon.
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