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After revealing the lyrics in her hit song “My All” were actually about Derek Jeter (via her upcoming memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey), Mimi is going into depth about what her time with the MLB star meant to her. In an exclusive clip, Mariah appears on The Oprah Conversation, telling the famed talk show host Derek Jeter was the “catalyst” that allowed her to finally divorce Tommy Mottola.
“Before you divorced Tommy Mottola, you met Yankee baseball player Derek Jeter, and you say he served a very high purpose in your life,” Oprah said, adding “This was one of those situations of the right person at the right place and the right time. What was it about Derek? He got his own song too, right?”
Mimi replied: “He got his own song. He got a few songs. He was a catalyst that helped me get out of that relationship because I believed that there was somebody else.”
“It was the racial situation, his mom is Irish, his dad is Black. But he was also very ambiguous looking to me. I didn’t know who he was, we met and I’ve written songs about it,” she went on, adding “And honestly, I don’t think it was like, ‘Oh my gosh, he was the love of my life’ … like, at the time I did, because I didn’t think I would ever meet anybody who wouldn’t — what’s the word? I used the word, I just thought about this last night. Not ‘looked down on’ but feel superior to me because of the fact that I’m not one way or another in most people’s minds, and they have preconceived notions, whatever.”
“But he was a catalyst. And I think that it was beautiful,” she repeated. Check out the full clip here.
