MARIAH CAREY developed an inferiority complex as soon as she entered the music industry – because her record company made her paranoid about her looks.
The Hero hitmaker was only a teenager when she got her big break in pop, and was already feeling lost because of her mixed genetic heritage.
But she was forced to toughen up and build her self-confidence after executives tried to put her down as she launched her career.
She says, “I remember starting out and being at a record company at 19 and having someone tell me, ‘This is your good side and this is your bad side. Don’t ever let anyone take any pictures of you from that side. You look terrible from that side’, and so on. I created this whole complex, like I didn’t already have enough of a complex.
“I felt very different as a bi-racial person. Growing up where I was, being half-black and half-white, was a weird and difficult thing because I didn’t quite fit in either place and I moved around a lot.
“So when I went from that to this world it was like, ‘Let’s create an inferiority complex before we make this person go on TV and try to have confidence.’ So it was all about building self-confidence.”