Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Mariah Carey Responds After Her 'Christmas' Cowriter Calls Out Her 'Tall Tale' About Writing The Hit Song

Mariah Carey; Walter Afanasieff
Robert Kamau/GC Images/GettyImages, Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images

The singer's team released a statement after 'All I Want for Christmas is You' cowriter Walter Afanasieff criticized her for previously claiming she wrote the song as a child.

Legendary pop diva Mariah Carey spoke out against the co-writer of the 1994 holiday hit "All I Want For Christmas Is You" claiming the singer didn't write the song by herself nor as a child.

Walter Afanasieff, who is credited along with Carey as the number 1 hit song's songwriters, appeared on the Hot Takes & Deep Dives With Jess Rothschild podcast where the drama unfolded.


Afanasieff is a songwriter and producer who collaborated with Carey on six of her earlier studio albums.

One of his biggest achievements was winning a Grammy for producing Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" from the Titanic movie.

When he heard Carey once suggested that she wrote "All I Want For Christmas Is You" when she was a "little girl," he dismissed her claim as "a tall tale."

"But, why weren't you saying that 12, 13, or 15 years prior to that?" he commented on the "alternate" recollection of the song's creation.

"So, it just kind of sort of developed in her mind."

He continued:

"She doesn’t play anything, she doesn’t play keyboard or piano. She doesn’t understand music, she doesn’t know chord changes and music theory or anything like that."
"She doesn’t know a diminished chord from a minor seventh chord to a major seventh chord."
"So to claim that she wrote a very complicated chord-structured song with her finger on a Casio keyboard when she was a little girl, it’s kind of a tall tale.”

You can listen to the podcast interview, here.

Mariah Carey LIES About "All I Want For Christmas Is You" !?youtu.be

Carey's team gave a rebuttal to Afanasieff's claim with a statement to the New York Post.

The rep for the singer said:

“Mariah has never claimed to write ‘All I Want for Christmas’ by herself or as a child."
"She has always credited Walter, as he is cited as a writer on the song, so that would be ridiculous."
“Not sure where that rumor came from, but Mariah is very respectful of writers and the craft, as she is a songwriter herself.”






Carey shared a vintage clip from a VH-1 interview in which she discussed the origins of the Christmas tune that went on to become a bonafide hit for all time.

Said Carey in the 1994 interview:

"I was up at the farm, upstate where we did the video, and it was nighttime, and I was just walking around, and I got the idea for the song."
“I don’t know where it came from, sometimes things just come to me like that."
“That melody just came into my head, the verse melody."
"And then, I was walking around, and I just went in and I had a little keyboard set up there and I just kind of finished the lyrics and the melody just came pretty quickly.”



Afanasieff said he and Carey collaborated on three songs for her holiday album, Merry Christmas.

He offered his recollection of crafting the major single, "All I Want For Christmas Is You."

“We were holed up in this beautiful home that [Mariah was] renting, and it was the summertime and there was a piano."
"So the writing of ‘All I Want for Christmas’ is, I started playing a boogie-woogie, kind of a rock."

He went on to say Carey came up with the melody and lyrics while he provided the music and chord progressions.

The song became one of the best-selling singles of all time.

It also topped the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 1 during each of the past three seasons and in each of the past four separate years (2019 to 2022).

More from Entertainment/music

Screenshot of Stephen Colbert
CBS

Stephen Colbert Makes Somber Plea To Americans In Wake Of Charlie Kirk's Death

Late-night host Stephen Colbert had a somber message for Americans as he addressed the assassination of far-right activist Charlie Kirk, stressing that "political violence only leads to more political violence."

Kirk died after an unidentified gunman shot him in the neck as he—ironically enough—mocked victims of gun violence at an event in Utah Valley State University. Kirk's murder has galvanized the far-right, with President Donald Trump and his surrogates claiming without evidence that rhetoric from Democrats is responsible for Kirk's death.

Keep ReadingShow less
a woman sunbathing on rocks.
a person sitting on a towel on a beach
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

People Share The Weirdest Flexes They Heard Someone Say With A Straight Face

It is never attractive to gloat.

Even so, some people can't help but brag, or "flex" as it is sometimes known, about certain accomplishments or attributes.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from @thedowntheredoc's TikTok video
@thedowntheredoc/TikTok

TikToker Hilariously Calls Out Target After Champion Pants Feature Awkwardly-Placed Front Pleat

Sometimes you can just tell when something was designed *for* women, but was not actually designed *by* women.

Take, for instance, the new pleated pants available at Target from the Champion clothing line. While there's nothing wrong with pleated pants and they certainly have a suitable spot in the workplace, the latest rendition of Champion pleated pants are, shall we say, NSFW.

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from @kaicutch's Instagram video
@kaicutch/Instagram

Woman Flips Her Car After Belting Out Ironic Britney Spears Lyric In Wild Viral Video

Whether we want to admit it or not, we've all had our fair share of carpool karaoke and maybe even imagined our car as our own personal recording studio.

But TikToker and Instagrammer Kaitlynn McCutcheon may have gotten too into her performance of Britney Spears' classic, "Hit Me Baby, One More Time," when the road and her car both said, "Bet."

Keep ReadingShow less
Screenshots from ​@lynnshazeen's TikTok video
@lynnshazeen/TikTok

Woman Goes Viral After Revealing How Her Obsession With Matcha Landed Her In The Hospital

Let's be honest: Too much of anything isn't good for us. It's all about the balance!

But the media and social media trends have taught us that certain things are really good for us, encouraging us to be like the "very mindful and very demure" girls and take care of ourselves. One such example is drinking more matcha, especially if you really like coffee or think you have a caffeine addiction.

Keep ReadingShow less