Mariah's got a lot to smile about

SINGAPORE: It is very easy to hate Mariah Carey. Why? Because no matter what happens to her, she always comes out smiling.

When she and Tommy Mottola got divorced, she came out smiling. When critics dissed her performance in the movie Glitter, she came out smiling. When people bitch/bitched about her size, she comes/came out smiling.

Of course, these days, she's got a lot to smile about.

Her current album Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel has garnered favourable reviews, with her singles Obsessed (allegedly a slam at rapper Eminem), I Want To Know What Love Is and H.A.T.E.U all doing well on the singles charts.

Furthermore, movie critics have been rather positive about her recent roles in WiseGirls, Tennessee and Precious - definitely a far cry from the mauling she received a mere eight years ago.

And, even after all these years, if all the pictures we see of her are to be believed, the 39-year-old singer still looks hot.

And yes, she's smiling in all of them.

Is she just genetically made to smile? Is she really, really happy all the time?

When she was in Seoul to promote the album recently, a few things became instantly obvious: She loves short dresses and high heels; she says the word "like", like, a lot; and, yes, she smiles all the time.

Here's, like, what she said.

You look gorgeous: Any beauty tips to share with TODAY readers?
First of all, thank you! Let's see... I think what makes me feel best is sleep. Like, the more I sleep the better I feel. Like today I feel very tired. I think that I could look better today because I just couldn't sleep that well last night.

Why should we buy Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel?
What makes this album special and different to me from my earlier albums is that there's a lot of humour in it - like fun songs with beats that I really like. It was fun to collaborate with Tricky and The Dream. The thing is that you have to really listen to the lyrics. (If) you could figure it out, you'll get the joke and it's pretty funny.

And there are also very sad songs on the album and ballads that I think everybody can relate to. I've done ballads before but these ballads are very specific. Like there's a song called H.A.T.E.U and it really means that I can't wait to hate you because you still love the person and, you know, you wish you didn't.

And then of course I have the remake of I Want To Know What Love Is, but there are also songs - like if people like hip-hop and R&B - they're really going to like these songs. Even songs which are old-school R&B like Candy Bling - that's just one of my favourites.

Do you have any new projects?
I have my perfume right here, brand new, called Forever. And I really like it.

Honestly, I don't like perfumes but I worked very hard with Elizabeth Arden to make sure that it represented me, and they told me that I was the hardest working celebrity or designer who's ever worked with them. I thought that was pretty cool.

This is my third one now, and I'm hoping Elizabeth Arden will make sure it's everywhere in Asia.

So it's your perfume first now?
Not first. We stick with the music first, always have. And I'm excited about the new movie Precious that I have, and everything you know? Everything is just so great. Like my marriage and all that, but I love doing projects like this.

Because I even picked out the bottle - it's like an art deco bottle that I had in my bath room. It's like a combination of, like, three different ones. And so while we're working on the bottle, I said, "Wait a minute, I have some ideas coming from my bathroom". (Laughs)

Tell us a bit more about the movie Precious.
There's a book called Push, and the author is Sapphire. And that's what the movie Precious is based on. I had read the book a really long time ago, and for some reason, I remember the character that I play (social worker Mrs Weiss).

Lee Daniels, the director said, "I want you to look as homely as possible. I want you to look ugly. I don't want anybody to recognize you at all. You're not gonna have any type of hair that looks like you. I'm gonna put you a little moustache on you. You're gonna have stuff under your eyes. You're gonna be very hideous. And then you're gonna lose yourself into the part."

So that's what we did.

What would you say is one thing that you care most about in the world? What would you like to change?
Obviously we all care about the environment, and it's very scary, but there are also other things that I care about that seem to be getting better - like racism.

That was always something that, um, was very deep for me, because you know, I'm half black and half white, and that would be something I always felt nobody seem to understand.

Did you experience racism when you were younger?
Well, I had a friend when I was younger - but I won't say her name because everybody can be looked up these days. She was my best friend, but I didn't know she was pretty racist. My mum and I moved around a lot at that time, and on some days I would go to my father's house, so you know, I wanted to bring my friend.

(My dad) was, like, tall, and everyone agreed he was a very good-looking black man. But my friend had probably had never seen anyone black that wasn't on TV. I don't know what her parents had told her because racism and things like that get started when you're young. So, we got there, and she looked up - I'll never forget it - she looked up and she saw my father, and she started crying, and she got really, really scared.

My mother was still there in her car, and she had to take her home and back to her house because she was just freaked out. That was the first time, when i was little, when it was, like, "There was something really different going on here"!

Source: Channelnewasia / MCClambNYC