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Over time, Mottola said, the two repaired the rift: "That blew over and we ended up being great friends." But as the label's chairman, Mottola was in the uncomfortable position of being the only person telling Jackson no when expenses began to mount on his increasingly extravagant projects. "We tried on his behalf, for his sake, to put the brakes on many times ..." Mottola said. "And we did the best we could. But at the end of the day Michael was an adult. M was a man in his 30s and 40s when I worked with him and he could make his own decisions at the end of the day even though his advisers may be telling him different." As for Jackson's legal troubles, Mottola said the label played the role of supporter without forming an opinion about the charges. "It wasn't our position to pass judgment," he said. "It was really our position to support Michael and that's what we did. We were there and we supported Michael to the best of our ability." Even more public than the rift with Jackson is Mottola's romance, marriage and eventual divorce from Carey, a 19-year-old backup singer he helped guide to the top of the music industry. Over the years Carey has characterized Mottola as controlling, cloistering her in a mansion she later called "Sing Sing" even as she became the world's most popular performer. In the book Mottola writes it was "absolutely wrong and inappropriate" to become involved with Carey. He writes he's "truly sorry for any discomfort or pain that all of my good intentions inevitably caused her, and most of all for the scars it left on my two oldest children" from his first marriage.
Mottola felt it was important to lay out the story as he saw it after "harsh" and "untrue" descriptions Carey has given in interviews over the years. He notes Carey asked him to marry her. And of the charges he was restrictive and controlling, a Svengali figure? "Lots of crap." Emilio Estefan said the divorce from Carey, who was unavailable for comment, led to a dark period for his friend personally, one he's delighted to have helped end by introducing Mottola to his third wife, Mexican actress and singer Thalia. They now have two children together. "I know the separation between him and Mariah was hard for both of them," Estefan said. "I love both of them, of course. I was a witness and a friend with Mariah, too, for many years being with them at big parties and celebrations. Sometimes things happen, and when the whole thing happened I saw him very lonely and I knew Thalia was in New York filming a movie." He suggested they have dinner: "And you know something? They clicked. He called me that night and said,
'I love this girl,' and she called me and said, 'I love this guy.' Both of them love each other and they have an incredible relationship."
[Associated
Press;
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