The XX Factor

Mariah Carey Insists Her TV Series on E! Is Not a Reality Show, but There’s Already Drama

Mariah Carey gets her star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California on August 5, 2015. 

Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

Mariah Carey wants the world to know that her forthcoming television series will not, under any circumstances, be a reality show. Never mind that it’s airing on E!, that its production company—Bunim/Murray—is best known for Keeping Up With the Kardashians and The Real World, and that its title is the tabloidy-sounding Mariah’s World. In an interview with the New York Times, the pop star insisted that the series will be more of a documentary of her spring 2016 tour than a silly romp through the day-to-day of a navel-gazing rich person—or, in Carey’s words, the kind of show that’s just “here I am, getting my nails done.”

But recent reports on the show expose some messaging incongruity that could result in exactly the kind of drama that’s given E!’s reality shows their notoriety. Carey told Times reporter John Koblin that she’ll have veto power over what’s filmed and what makes the final cut; Mariah’s World producers told him it would be more of a “collaboration.” Carey told the Times that the series will feature neither her 4-year-old twins (“they’re too young to make that decision”) nor her gajillionaire fiancé (“he’s a legit businessman … it’s not really his thing”). But a source told Us Weekly of the show, “Mariah’s excited to show some personal family moments.” 

Jeff Jenkins, an executive vice president at Bunim/Murray, recalled a scene from Madonna’s Truth or Dare documentary as inspiration for Carey’s eight-episode series, which is set to debut later this year:

“Remember when Madonna’s getting a chiropractic adjustment,” Mr. Jenkins recalled, and noticed that the director was following her. “And she says, ‘You’re following me into the adjustment?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, we’re shooting everything, remember?’ And she says, ‘Not my adjustment!’ He said, ‘Yeah, we’re shooting everything,’ and she says, ‘O.K.’ That’s kind of where I’m at right now with Mariah.”

Coercing a celebrity into broadcasting ever-more-private moments of her daily life: That appears to be the production strategy behind Mariah’s World. Koblin mentions a renowned 2002 Cribs episode that found Carey stripping off her nightie and stepping into the tub; Jenkins says, of people who loved that moment, “I don’t think they’ll be disappointed” with Mariah’s World. Funny, it sounds kind of like—wait, what’s that bit of industry jargon? Oh, right: a reality show. And Carey has previously proven her ability to stoke interpersonal conflict, the most important meal of a reality show’s daily diet. She’s said that her time working with Nicki Minaj on American Idol was like “going to work every day in hell with Satan,” and gossipmongers are still calling her Jennifer Lopez brain fart a “feud.”

Still, Mariah’s World can’t help but depart from E!’s conventions. Carey is not a Kardashian, someone whose fame blossomed from a vortex of unimaginable wealth and farcical narcissism. Her fame blossomed from a vortex of unimaginable wealth and farcical narcissism and actual musical talent. She’s not a half-forgotten C-lister in need of an image boost; she’s one of the best-selling artists of all time, and she’s still spitting out hits. Her ire comes out in self-possessed, low-key burns, which means there will be a lot less shouting on her show than in the typical dumpster fire of a reality joint. In fact, Carey can’t even speak, much less scream, on the days before her concerts. Reality show or not, Mariah’s World sounds downright soothing by E!’s standards.