Mariah Carey wasn’t always the Pop icon that the world sees her as today. The bi-racial singer faced blatant discrimination as a child.
During the press conference for the upcoming film The Butler at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on Monday, the 43-year-old daughter of an African-American and Venezuelan father and Irish mother, revealed that she was spat on by a white person when she was younger, according to Yahoo!.
“That actually happened to me,” Carey said, referencing a scene in the film meant to emulate the Woolworth’s Lunch Counter sit-in during a screening. “I know people would be in shock and not really want to believe or accept that, but it did. That right there, that was almost the deepest thing to me in the movie because I know what she went through, and it happened to be on a bus as well.”
Other members of the cast were on hand to witness Carey recalling the event including Oprah Winfrey who asked further about the spitting incident, and where she was spat on.
“In the face and in the same way [as the movie],” said Carey.
In the Lee Daniels directed-film The Butler, Carey plays a slave who is the mother of Forrest Whitaker’s character Cecil Gaines. Opening in theaters August 16, the movie is loosely based on the story of Eugene Allen, a servant of the White House through eight presidential administrations. Carey joins a star-studded cast that includes Winfrey, Robin Williams, Jon Cusack, Terrence Howard and Lenny Kravitz
[Vibe]
(Photo via Getty Images America)
