One Of Mariah Carey's Biggest Fights With Ex Tommy Mottola Was Over Diddy The List
Mariah Carey doesn’t tolerate nonsense. The singer says one of her biggest fights with ex-husband Tommy Mottola boiled down to a remark about Diddy.
By Jan. 26, 2025 9:00 pm EST
Like many celebrities, Mariah Carey has remained very quiet regarding the recent allegations against Sean "Diddy" Combs. However, there was a time when Carey thought so highly of the music mogul that she was willing to defend him even in front of her controlling ex-husband. Long before she married and divorced Nick Cannon, Carey was famously married to music executive Tommy Mottola, who helped discover her and launch her into superstardom.
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The two eventually grew close and were married by 1993. However, Mottola quickly became an oppressive force in the singer's life. "It felt like he was cutting off my circulation, keeping me from my friends and what little 'family' I had," Carey wrote in her memoir, "The Meaning of Mariah Carey," adding, "I couldn't talk to anyone that wasn't under Tommy's control. I couldn't go out or do anything with anybody. I couldn't move freely in my own house."
Surprisingly, Carey discovered she had it in her to fight back against Mottola — thanks to Diddy. The entrepreneur was just beginning to make a name for himself back in those days, at least enough for the likes of Mottola and Carey to take notice. Mottola told his ex-wife that he doubted Diddy's success, and Carey found his particular wording offensive — so much so that it resulted in one of the couple's biggest fights. "'Puffy will be shining my shoes in two years,'" Carey recalled Mottola saying in her memoir. "It was one of the very few times I stood up to Tommy, telling him that what he had said was blatantly racist. I was pissed."
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That wasn't the last time Mariah Carey and Tommy Mottola talked about Sean "Diddy" Combs. The topic of Diddy came up again while Carey and her ex-husband were eating dinner with another music executive at an Italian restaurant. The music executive asked Carey what she thought about the then-fresh-faced producer. "The table got quiet as I leaned in and gave my honest assessment: that Puff and Bad Boy were definitely where modern music was headed," Carey wrote. But her honest assessment wasn't what Mottola wanted to hear. According to Carey, the conversation once again brought out Mottola's anger. "Still vibrating with rage, he slammed his fist on the table and announced, 'I just want everybody to know that THANKSGIVING IS CANCELLED!' Um, okay," she wrote.
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Given Mottola's behavior, it was only a matter of time before the pair broke up. One of her first wake-up calls regarding her marriage was when she spoke with hip-hop artist Da Brat. When she and Brat once went to get some french fries from Burger King, it sent Mottola into a panic. Seeing the music executive's reaction, Brat advised Carey it might've been time to leave the relationship. "If Da Brat, a nineteen-year-old female rapper from the West Side, is afraid for you, you know the situation has got to be dire, dahling," Carey said. Eventually, Carey would have an affair with Derek Jeter, which was a catalyst for Carey officially ending her marriage in 1998.