Mariah Carey is still hurting from her time on “American Idol.”
“It was the most abusive experience,” the pop diva told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s Summer press tour in Beverly Hills on Wednesday.
“You’ve just driven me to drink,” she added, directing her response to the reporter who asked her about the show.
Producers of her new E! docu-series, “Mariah’s World,” had passed around flutes of champagne. Carey sipped from hers throughout her session.
Carey quickly moved away from the subject of “Idol,” which she has criticized before. In 2015, she called the Fox singing contest “the worst experience of my life” and said her much-talked-about Season 12 feud with Nicki Minaj was bogus.
As for the rest of her session in Beverly Hills …. well, it was strange, and not always because Mimi intended it to be so.
She arrived in a beaded black camisole and stockings, flanked by a team of a half-dozen muscular young men stripped to the waist, then seated herself on a purple velvet chaise lounge to take questions.
Carey said that she and her ex-husband Nick Cannon, host of “America’s Got Talent,” had to work out how often their kids would appear on her E! show. A reporter asked if that meant that Cannon would be on the show.
“I didn’t say that darling,” Carey replied. “I said he came around; I don’t know what makes final cut.” At this, as at virtually everything she said, Carey’s entourage parked off stage right whooped and hollered as if she had just uttered the funniest punchline in comedy history.
Asked what young female pop stars Carey admires today, the pop star said yes but offered no names. When the critic pressed who those stars might be, Carey replied: “They would be lovely ladies and it’s not their day.”
More cheers from her peanut gallery.
When asked why she would want to do a reality show – a genre she has criticized- she said: “We call it more of a docu-series because it feels more like a documentary.”
Then she added: “I don’t know what reality is — literally. In terms of real and reality.”
“Mariah’s World” premieres Dec. 4.