Bishop Keaton used to be a pool shark; he lived a very different life before becoming a pastor. He’d already earned respect in the neighborhood, when at that time it would not be uncommon to duck bullets in broad daylight, so he had protection, and people didn’t mess with him. I would have security provided by the church, and the congregation would respect my privacy—the bishop saw to it. I found community in the church and family in my bishop, who treated me like a daughter. He often came to talk to me, even when he was going through health issues toward the end of his life.
It was such an honor to solidify Bishop Keaton’s legacy as a great spiritual teacher in my life and in the world by featuring him on two of my songs, “I Wish You Well” and “Fly Like a Bird.” He and the True Worship choir joined me on Good Morning America to perform “Fly Like a Bird,” before he took flight on July 3, 2009.
Having a family in God brought me back to my life in the Light. Pat couldn’t understand. She left me a snide phone message on my Blackberry: “What is this with you and your new friends and your new prayers?” None of my biological family understood what it meant to care so much about God. But I had to. Returning to God was the only way I made it out of all my trips to hell. I believe my ex-brother and ex-sister have been to a hell of their own; they may still be trapped there. They chose drugs and lies and schemes to survive, but that only seemed to dig them in deeper and to make them resent me more. And I still pray for them.
Maybe when you’re cursing me
You don’t feel so incomplete
But we’ve all made mistakes
Felt the guilt and self-hate
I know that you’ve been there for plenty
Maybe still got love for me
But let him without sin cast the first stone brethren
But who remains standing then
Not you, not I, see Philippians 4:9
So, I wish you well
—“I Wish You Well”
So gradually I overcame the dark time that my family had dragged me through. And after all that shit, “Loverboy” ended up being the best-selling single of 2001 in the United States. I’m real.
PART IV
EMANCIPATION
MY COUSIN VINNY
After the whole Glitter fiasco, Virgin was spooked and wanted to change my deal to make it much less significant. They felt they couldn’t justify spending all that money on such an “unstable” person. The woman who had signed me was fired, and they brought in two new people from England to replace her. I remember the first day I sat down with them—basically, they were pretty fucking awful. They were trying to change the deal, and I just knew I had to get out of there.
Getting to Virgin had seemed like a triumph because I was so desperate to get off Sony. Virgin wasn’t as big, but it was a boutique label, and I knew how well they had taken care of Lenny Kravitz and Janet Jackson. They offered me such a good deal in part because they weren’t as slick and influential as other labels; they didn’t know all the tricks that Sony and the other big labels knew. They were eclectic and saw me as a big, shiny star. Initially I chose Virgin over a larger and more cutthroat label for the deal they were offering, but when they wanted to “adjust” it, with all new players, I had no reason to stay. They offered a revised agreement wherein they would pay me much less and have more control. I refused.
Instead, the CEO of Universal Music Group, the genius Doug Morris, and visionary hip-hop music executive Lyor Cohen (we both had come a long way since I met him on the street with Will Smith, singing Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock’s “It Takes Two”), came to my penthouse. The three of us sat in the living room with Marilyn’s white baby grand, and over champagne Doug proclaimed, “You know what, Mariah? We’re going to do this. I think we’re really gonna do this.” I felt safe and seen. They would have to pay a pretty penny to get me out of the deal I had with Virgin, but they were willing. I was like, Fuck everybody else; I’m still good, I’m still here. I mean, I had two of the top music executives in the world on my couch, with no middlemen. We were going to be all right. After all of the trauma I’d experienced, the faith and trust Doug showed in me, and his exciting vision for the future, renewed me. And I was going to do it! I had no intention of dying with the nineties, as Tommy had prophesized. I always knew I could be even bigger than he saw. I had so much more music inside of me. Ready to begin again, I signed my new deal.
The first album I made on Universal was Charmbracelet. Recording Charmbracelet was a chance at restoration and recuperation after the disaster that was Glitter. Waiting at the end of my Rainbow bridge to freedom was a kind of paradise, an oasis. Quite literally—I recorded a lot of the album in the Bahamas and on the Isle of Capri (a semi-secret, retro-glamorous getaway like the old Hollywood
