Mariah reveals bipolar diagnosis
Mariah Carey told People magazine she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2001.
Mariah Carey, the superstar singer who has lived in the public eye for three decades, has acknowledged that, in 2001, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Carey disclosed the diagnosis in an interview with People magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jess Cagle. A preview was published online Wednesday. The full interview will be available Friday.
The interview marks one of the first instances in which a celebrity of Carey’s stature has acknowledged her struggles with mental illness. In the interview, she explained why she had not previously revealed the diagnosis.
“I didn’t want to carry around the stigma of a lifelong disease that would define me and potentially end my career,” she said. “I was so terrified of losing everything.”
Carey said she lived in “denial and isolation and in constant fear someone would expose me,” and that she had come forward after the burden became too heavy to bear. She is in therapy and taking medication for bipolar II disorder, a disease that can cause sudden and extreme shifts in mood, among other symptoms.
Carey was a teenager in the late 1980s when she was recruited by Tommy Mottola, the president of what was then CBS Records, to become a pop star. Her fame was swift and that placed enormous pressure on her from the beginning.
The latter half of her career has been characterized by inconsistent performances and a string of high-profile relationships that have been obsessively covered by the tabloids.