LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mariah Carey relishes the fact that she has become culturally synonymous with Christmas — thanks in part to the longevity of her iconic song “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” and its ubiquity every year when the holidays roll around.
But the Grammy winner admits she initially wasn’t sure about doing a Christmas record when her label pitched it. “I was a little bit apprehensive,” she recalls, reflecting on her album, “Merry Christmas,” turning 30 this month.
Ahead of her appearance at Sunday’s American Music Awards and an upcoming Christmas tour that kicks off in November, Carey spoke with The Associated Press about the advice she would give to young artists navigating fame and the use of her song, “Always Be My Baby,” in Ari Aster’s 2023 horror comedy, “Beau Is Afraid.”
The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
CAREY: I think “The Emancipation of Mimi” is one of my albums where there were different boundaries that got pushed aside and I was really happy about that because I needed to come back, apparently. And so, it was a comeback. But it’s one of my favorite albums. And celebrating it this year and this celebration of “Mimi” was really fun because I never get to do those songs. I never do them. And this this time I did.
CAREY: Yeah, I feel like people were ready to re-embrace me. And, you know, how did I feel about that? I mean, I feel like the album “Charmbracelet” was a very good album too, but not everybody knew that album. So, you know, when “We Belong Together” came out after “It’s Like That,” which didn’t do as well but still did pretty well. Whatever.
CAREY: It’s a good song. And I love performing it. You know, I go through stages with these albums. It’s interesting.
CAREY: So that was the record company saying, “You should do a Christmas album.” And I was like, “I don’t know that I should at this juncture.” Because, you know, I was very young and was just starting out and I felt like people do Christmas albums later in their lives. But now people have started to do them whenever, like right at the top of their career. So, I mean, what was I feeling like? I was a little bit apprehensive and then I was like, “I love this.” And I decorated the studio and just had the best time.
CAREY: Well, I have been through my share of dramas and it’s not fun because you grow up thinking, “I want to be famous.” I mean, really with me, it was always, “I want to be a singer. I want to write songs.” But “I want to be famous” was right there with it. I feel like it was probably because I didn’t feel like I was good enough on my own because of the things I went through growing up. And that’s not a good way to feel, you know?
But my advice would be try your hardest to go into this industry with a love of your talent or what’s really real for you. You know, if it’s like, “I want to be famous. I want to run around with those people, whoever they are, the famous people,” then it’s probably not the best idea.
CAREY: Yes. I had to approve that. I thought it was interesting the way they used my song, “Always Be My Baby.” That was interesting. I mean, it didn’t really match with the movie, but, you know, I was just being edgy by saying, “You know, okay, fine.” It was very different. I mean, I wasn’t reluctant, but I thought, “This is something way different than I’ve done ever.”
FILE - Mariah Carey appears at the third annual Recording Academy Honors Presented by The Black Music Collective in Los Angeles on Feb. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
FILE - Mariah Carey performs at the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, Dec. 31, 2017, in New York. (Photo by Brent N. Clarke/Invision/AP, File)
LONDON (AP) — The British government agreed Thursday to hand sovereignty of the long-contested Chagos Islands, an archipelago of more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius, in a deal to secure the future of a strategically important U.K.-U.S. military base.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the agreement will secure the future of the base at Diego Garcia, the largest in the chain of remote islands off the tip of India that has been under British control for over 50 years. The base, which is home to around 2,500 personnel, mainly Americans, has been involved in military operations including the 2003 war in Iraq and the long-running war in Afghanistan.
Britain's Labour government said without the deal the secure operation of the military base would be under threat, with contested sovereignty and legal challenges, including through various international courts and tribunals.
“It will strengthen our role in safeguarding global security, shut down any possibility of the Indian Ocean being used as a dangerous illegal migration route to the U.K., as well as guaranteeing our long-term relationship with Mauritius, a close Commonwealth partner,” Lammy said.
The agreement also paves the way for the potential return of the few people still alive who were forcibly displaced from their homes on the islands decades ago.
As part of the deal, the U.K. will retain sovereignty of Diego Garcia for an initial period of 99 years, and will pay Mauritius an undisclosed rent. It will also create a “resettlement” fund for displaced Chagossians aimed at letting them move back to the islands other than Diego Garcia.
The Chagos Islands, which conjure up images of paradise with their lush vegetation and long stretches of white sandy beaches, have been at the heart of what Britain has called the British Indian Ocean Territory since 1965 when they were siphoned away from Mauritius, a former U.K. colony that gained independence three years later. Mauritius, which lies east of Madagascar in southern Africa, is around 2,100 kilometers (1,250 miles) southwest of the Chagos Islands.
Following a lease agreement with Britain, the U.S. built the naval base at Diego Garcia for defense purposes in the 1970s. The U.S. has described the base as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.
Around 1,500 inhabitants from the Chagos Islands were displaced to make way for the U.S. base, in what Human Rights Watch said last year amounted to “crimes against humanity committed by a colonial power against an indigenous people.”
Chagossian Voices, a U.K.-based group representing the Chagossian diaspora around the world, voiced disappointment that the negotiations excluded those displaced.
“Chagossians have learned this outcome from the media and remain powerless and voiceless in determining our own future and the future of our homeland.” it said in a statement on social media. “The views of Chagossians, the indigenous inhabitants of the islands, have been consistently and deliberately ignored and we demand full inclusion in the drafting of the treaty.”
The agreement will have to be signed off in a treaty and is dependent on legal processes being finalized. Both sides have committed to complete this as quickly as possible.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he spoke to his Mauritius counterpart, Pravind Jugnauth, on Thursday morning, welcoming the agreement after two years of negotiations that began under the previous Conservative government.
“56 years after our independence, the decolonization is finally complete,” Jugnauth said in a televised address to the nation later Thursday.
The Mauritius government said that the treaty will aim to resolve all outstanding issues related to the islands, including “its former inhabitants,” as well as addressing “the wrongs of the past.”
It laid out the hope that those displaced who are still alive and their descendants, who are mainly living in the U.K., Mauritius and the Seychelles, will have a right to return, as it is now “free” to implement a resettlement program on the islands except Diego Garcia.
It added that the U.K. will financially support the Chagossians, who have fought a long-running legal battle about their displacement, most recently in 2016 when they lost out in a Supreme Court ruling in the U.K. At the time, the previous Conservative government refused their right to return but voiced its “deep regret” for the way the Chagossian community had been mistreated in the 1960s and 1970s.
Over the years, the Chagossians and Mauritius have garnered increasing international support, notably among African nations and within the United Nations. In 2019, in an advisory option that was non-binding, the International Court of Justice ruled that the U.K. had unlawfully carved up Mauritius when it agreed to end colonial rule in the late 1960s.
President Joe Biden applauded the “historic agreement” on the status of the Chagos Islands. “The agreement secures the effective operation of the joint facility on Diego Garcia into the next century,” his White House statement said.
In the U.K., Conservative lawmakers standing to be leader of Britain's opposition party expressed dismay at the decision to hand over sovereignty of all but one of the islands. They were criticized for the comments, given that the previous Conservative government started the negotiations.
One of the candidates, Tom Tugenhat, said he has consistently opposed any plan to hand over sovereignty of the islands and warned that the move could see Mauritius potentially leasing one of the islands to China.
“This is a shameful retreat undermining our security and leaving our allies exposed," he said.
AP journalist Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, contributed to this report.
This photo provided by the U.S. Navy on Feb. 11, 2023 shows U.S. Navy Sailors aboard the USS Paul Hamilton (DDG 60) during a routine port visit at Diego Garcia. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Elliot Schaudt/U.S. Navy via AP)
FILE - Women take part in a protest outside the Houses of Parliament in London, after a court ruling decided Chagos Islanders were not allowed to return to their homeland, Oct. 22, 2008. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, file)
This image realeased by the U.S. Navy shows an aerial view of Diego Garcia. (U.S. Navy via AP)
FILE - Protesters hold banners outside the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, Sept. 3, 2018, where judges listen to arguments in a case on whether Britain illegally maintains sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. (AP Photo/Mike Corder, File)
