“Don’t say if I make it. Say when I make it”: Mariah Carey recalls her late mom’s advice

Mariah Carey opened up to colleague SZA about the words of wisdom imparted by her late mother, Patricia Carey. Whilst speaking to the Saturn hitmaker about her career and upcoming album Here For It All at the Apple Music Flowers event on September 24, 2025, Carey got emotional, recalling her mother’s advice to her:

"I think one of the main things that she said, the one thing she said to me, and it was clear, and it was right there. She said, ‘Don't say if I make it. Say when I make it.’ So… I’m going to get emotional."

SZA comforted Carey, saying that Patricia would be proud of how she was raising her kids, Moroccan and Monroe.

In her memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey, Mariah described her relationship with her late mother as "a prickly rope of pride, pain, shame, gratitude, jealousy, admiration and disappointment."

In her September 24, 2025, interview with Gayle King on CBS Mornings, the Obsessed hitmaker said she made peace with her mother before her passing:

"She said a lot of things that were very healing for what I needed. And I felt like that was the right thing to do."

“She was also a diva because she was an opera singer”: Mariah Carey discusses her late mother in an interview with SZA

During the Apple Music event, Mariah Carey discussed her late mother’s career and how it inspired her own. The singer stated that her mother was an opera singer who debuted at Lincoln Center.

As a result, Mariah was always around music growing up. She described her mother as a diva because she was an Opera singer, adding that she was a diva herself:

"And she was also a diva because she was an opera singer, and that's the definition of the word if you're gonna look it up. She would say, ‘So and so is very much the diva,’ and I had to learn what that meant on my own, but I think I'm probably very much a diva."

Patricia Carey died in August 2024 on the same day as her daughter, Alison. Mariah recalled that time as a challenging period for her.

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