Mariah Carey Opens Up

Ah, Mariah Carey -- she's always good for some notable quotables.

The music maven has a brand new album coming out -- the aptly titled E=MC² -- and is doing lots of talking about her life. When asked by Parade mag what she thinks about being called "a diva", Mimi just lets it rip.

"They throw that word around like it’s a figgin’ Frisbee," she said of the tag. "I grew up hearing it because my mother is an opera singer… The actual definition is a ‘talented female singer.’ Definition two is a ‘difficult woman who is successful,’ I believe. So I take it as a compliment."

Mariah also opens up about her tumultuous marriage to record exec Tommy Mottola, who was rumoured to have been extremely controlling during the seven years they were together.

"That part of my life always remains with me, because it was so intense," she told the magazine. "But part of that is my fault, for allowing that relationship to kind of linger – or dare I say, fester – for so long. I grew up with such dysfunction that I assumed I didn’t have a right to a happy personal life."

And what about the crazy breakdown she suffered in 2001? "My life was in such shambles, because I had allowed it to become a shambles," she said of that period.

But, like the diva she is, Mariah climbed her way to the top with her 2005 smash album, The Emancipation of Mimi, and is poised to have her 18th No. 1 song, should she top the charts with her new single "Touch My Body".

"You know what? I guess I am a diva in many ways," she said. "When it comes to certain things, yes, I can be difficult and a little bit rigid about what I want. Am I demanding? I don’t think I’m demanding enough. I think if I were more demanding, I would have felt that I had some sort of power as opposed to feeling like a pawn, which is something I had to grow out of.

I love a woman who embraces her diva status. I can only dream of being referred to as something so cool.