Meltdown After the Breakup
EXCLUSIVE Mariah Carey unravels in the wake of her split from billionaire
Mariah Carey was in her element. In her first performance since news of her contentious split with Australian billionaire businessman James Packer made headlines, she took the stage on Nov. 3 at the new Saks Fifth Avenue in Toronto to celebrate its holiday window display. For seven minutes, the diva sang her heart out in a curve-hugging red-andpink Anna Maier gown until the show ended with a rain of confetti, a fireworks display and a beaming Mariah basking in the glow of the spotlight. “Mariah,” says an insider, “is desperate to look like she’s not bothered by the breakup.”
But behind the scenes, she’s out of control. Mul- tiple sources tell In Touch that Mariah, 47, has come unhinged since the breakup with James, 49, turning the split into an ugly web of lies, deceit and fights. “Mariah’s behavior when it was over was ridiculous,” say a source close to the situation. “She’s gone full diva.” Adds the Mariah insider: “She’s losing it. Now that James is out of her life, she’s acting loopier than ever. She says she doesn’t care about him, and in the next breath she’s complaining how heartbroken she is that he left her.” Her former stylist Phillip Bloch tells In Touch, “She’s a lot to handle. She’s delusional, but that’s OK. It works in her life. She’s like a ride at the amusement park — there’s a lot of turbulence going on there.”
She wants revenge on James — in the form of money! “People around her are encouraging Mariah to get money out of James,” says the source close to the situation. “At one point, she insisted on $50 million. For what? Why would he owe her anything? To this day he still has no idea why she thinks she’s entitled to anything.” Money is a big reason they split. Mariah rejected a prenup that would have paid her $6 million dollars per year for each full year of marriage, up to a maximum of $30 million. But Mariah was demanding a $50 million lump sum.
Her advisers aren’t helping matters. “The people around Mariah turned the breakup into a circus,” says the source close to the situation. “And they fed a bunch of lies to the media, lies that are easy to disprove.” Such as? “At one point, a person close to Mariah said something had happened with James while he was on a yacht [in Greece in September]. But the problem is, James wasn’t on a yacht and he wasn’t within several hundred miles of Mariah when the alleged incident happened! It was yet another lie. And at one point, her team even claimed Mariah had to cancel South America tour dates because she was so upset about James [calling off the engagement]. But the problem is, she had previously tweeted about canceling the tour dates. It had nothing to do with him.”
Mariah’s famously gone off the rails before. In 2001, she was hospitalized for two weeks and received psychiatric care following an emotional breakdown. “One minute she’s saying she wants to go to dinner to be seen by her fans, and the next minute she’s complaining that they won’t leave her alone when she goes out,” says the Mariah insider.
James feels like he dodged a bullet. “At one point, he wanted to marry her,” says the source close to the situation. “They never had sex, but he was in love. Then her drama grew out of control and it was inevitable that this relationship was not going to last. In the end, James will probably work something out with Mariah just to get rid of her. Because the bottom line is, Mariah is a mess.” ◼