Transcript | Ep. 111: Mariah, Céline and Divadom with Chelsea Devantez
Chelsea Devantez: I think I think we call women divas to absolutely tear them down when we want to say a much worse thing. And I think the bar is just so low, like a man would have to do so much to be called an asshole. And a woman just has to be like, I'm so sorry um you did this wrong. And they're like, fuck you.
[Theme music]
Cristen: Hey divas and welcome to Unladylike! I'm Cristen
Caroline: I'm Caroline
Cristen: Caroline, it feels so unnatural to address our audience at divas
Caroline: For sure.
Cristen: But y'all, it is appropriate because today, we’re time-traveling back to the peak divas era of the 90s.
CLIP- Mariah Carey “Vision of Love”
Treated me kind, sweet destiny, carried me through desperation...
Caroline: OK y’all are hearing Mariah Carey’s first single from 1990, Vision of Love. It is a video that is imprinted on my mind. I was absolutely obsessed with it when I was growing up. And that obsession endured because, Cristen, I was still obsessed with one Mariah Carey, when she was on the first VH1 Divas Live concert in 1998.
Cristen: Oh my god. Divas Live. OK tell me about your viewing experience
Caroline: Ok, picture it. It’s a weeknight. A Tuesday. I’m in eighth grade. I’m probably in my jam jams. I’m with my mom. And my eyeballs are glued to the television, because Divas Live — for those of y'all who for some reason don’t remember or perhaps are too young — Divas Live was an event that got together so many incredible women. Mariah was up on stage with her big gorgeous hair, her teeny tiny gorgeous dress alongside Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, Gloria Estefan, Shania Twain and the other diva we’ll be focusing on in this episode, Céline Dion.
Cristen: Yeah, Céline and Mariah are like this unladylike case study in the celebrity diva construct. Both have a lot in common in terms of their talent, their marriages to super powerful older men and their pop cultural superstardom. Both of them also got the diva treatment in the media, but in verrry different ways.
Caroline: To help us break down Céline’s and Mariah’s divadoms, we are talking to comedian Chelsea Devantez, host of one of our favorite podcasts, Celebrity Book Club. Each episode, Chelsea recaps a famous woman’s memoir and gives them the respect they deserve.
Chelsea: I think people really don't give these books enough credit. And it's kind of, you know, a big theme with women just not giving them enough credit and thinking they belong in this trashy category simply for having items in them about - that could be like celebrity gossipy or whatever. But they're almost all of them are survival stories. And because they are celebrities, all of them are powerful women. Whether you think you respect them or not, they got to a powerful place, which means they've all been through some fucking shit.
Cristen: And some of that fucking shit is getting label a diva. It’s a theme that’s come up in many of the memoirs Chelsea’s covered. Especially Mariah Carey’s 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey and Céline Dion’s 2001 memoir, My Story, My Dream.
Caroline: So today, Chelsea is going to walk us through Mariah’s and Céline’s life stories. She’s going to compare and contrast their respective diva identities. And she’ll also share how these celebrity memoirs shine a light on the personal traumas, media misrepresentations and straight up sexism behind these divas’ music… get it? Like VH1’s Behind the Music?? … OK, let’s get to it!
[Stinger]
Cristen: Is there an origin story or kind of a gateway memoir that started Celebrity Book Club for you?
Chelsea: Yeah, you know, celebrity memoirs have always been my favorite genre. I joke and say that's what happens when your nearest bookstore is a Wal-Mart growing up. And so yeah, I’ve read hundreds of them throughout my life. And the podcast started when I was on a girls trip and I was reading Jessica Simpson's memoir, in a hot tub, real drunk. And I was like, this book is so good. The people got to know, they have to know what’s in here. And I started recapping the book on my Instagram stories and the podcast started almost immediately.
Cristen: How does the concept of the diva show up in the celebrity memoirs that you've read? Like, have you noticed it either as a label that people are resisting or something that they lean into?
Chelsea: Well, you know, it's funny you say that because Mariah Carey literally redefines the word diva in her book and is sort of like quit calling me a diva. This is what a diva really is. And she she writes that they're a soprano. It means you're a female soprano singer and, you know, her mom's an opera singer. So that had a lot of meaning for her. I mean, all of the women deal with obstacles that come with having difficult personalities, which to varying degrees, sometimes you read the book and you're like, yeah, you you really actually do sound like you have a difficult personality. Other times you read it and it's like, yes, by having one want or a boundary, you are labeled this thing. I think I think almost all of the books have to fight against that. Is even like Dolly Parton, which her book, you know, she is she's the most lovable plays both sides. You know. Kind of like she's learned to make people love her even though she's standing up for what she wants. So even though she doesn't come right out and say, like, I'm not a diva, throughout the book, she's talking about how the times people tried to run her over because they thought she was just like a dumb blond and the ways she stood her ground.
Cristen: Yeah, she's kind of an anti-diva, almost.
Chelsea: Yeah. Except she's such I mean, like if we're talking, you know, if a diva is a female version of a hustler, which I assume is the official definition on this podcast, she she's such a diva. I mean, truly, almost all of them are divas. There's no way to be in their position as a celebrity and not be a diva. She's done an amazing thing, which is branded and marketed herself as not one, but she always - you cannot mess with Dolly Parton. You can't get one over on on her. But she makes you think that you can. And so she gets away with anything.
Cristen: Also, the fact that I just described Dolly, who you're totally right like is - I mean, she personifies diva in so many ways. I think the fact that I tried to describe her as an anti-diva just reveals my own inherently sexist connotation of diva. But we can get into that later.
Chelsea: I mean, maybe your diva, like, do all our divas come out on this podcast? Is this the day where we just, like, step into diva-ness?
Cristen: We shall reclaim!
Chelsea: Mm hmm.
Cristen: So have you ever self-identified as a diva? Do you have any diva ish qualities yourself?
Chelsea: Oh, my God, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes. I don't think I would be here if I didn't. And by be here, I you know, I'm a woman in comedy and you just I also kind of came up in sort of the last generation of where you would be the only girl on your improv team. And if you don't have if you don't build up a really intense core strength, you will not make it. And and and when you have a lot of strength, you get called a diva or a bitch or anything. I actually, you know, I uh so I used to perform in the Second City, which is a theater in Chicago, and used to do live improv and and comedy shows all the time. And I one time our stage manager would always set the chairs wrong before our show. And we had to do this weird, complicated dance with the chairs and so they couldn't be set wrong. And so every night I would be like, can you you know, you missed the chairs, can you? And I was nice. But it's like you have to reset the chairs. You have to reset the chairs. And on the third time we were in a new theater and you could hear them over the mics and they didn't know we could hear them backstage. And they were like, God, she's such a diva, always asking for us to fix these chairs. And I was like, OK, this is - that cannot - the bar is too low. It's too low. I cannot be a diva for asking for the chair to be in the right place.
Caroline: Do you think that they saw that as like maybe not even consciously, but do you think they saw that as like a less sexist way to call you a bitch? Like, Oh, well, I'm not calling her a bitch. It's just that she's being so demanding.
Chelsea: Oh, my God. Yeah, that's such a great point. I do think we let people say diva when what they mean is bitch. But honestly, I would prefer bitch. To me, bitch is like a great term that I've decided is a compliment. And I would prefer you just say that because it feels like it has more power behind it.
Caroline: Well, what are some of the connotations when someone else is labeling you a diva?
Chelsea: Yeah, I think, one specific thing that comes with being a diva, I think is uh femme-presenting. So if you are a woman, man, non-binary, if you choose to be femme presenting, there is a much bigger target on your back and on the front of your face. People think they get to dismiss you, whereas if you choose to present more masculine, different words will be used for you and kind of like the word like slut. You know, it has this connotation of like because you're femme, you are worth less. I think, you know, a big theme for Mariah Carey in her book is how she is very femme pop, pop star, cutesie. And so people forget to call her a songwriter. And she wrote 19 number one hits. To compare, Billy Joel wrote eight. So and but we don't think of her as a songwriter. We think of her as a singer. And I think we do that to women who enjoy their femininity. And also, I am very feminine. I, I used to hide it in order to succeed in this business. I used to try and be more one of the boys because it's a business that's one of the boys. And thankfully I stopped pretty early on and really leaned hard the other way. Like, I love I love drag queens. I love makeup, I love celebrity gossip, I love all of it. And I just gave fully into it. But it does make things harder for you. I, I had people tell me, like, if I would dress differently, I would be funnier.
Cristen: Differently, as in like I'm going to guess they weren't talking about, like, put on a funny outfit like.
Chelsea: No no yeah, they're literally like stop. If you could hide your boobs, I think you would do better. And it's like, yeah, yeah. But you know what? My own everyone you know, everyone's personal act of feminism should be to dress and act however the fuck they want and never care what anyone thinks. And for me, that is going so full hard femme, that it scares you. Like, I like putting on so much makeup and being so feminine that it is no longer attractive. It's like, oh, my God, what's happening like that? That's how I that's what I enjoy, you know, telling jokes in like a full red lip and a crown like that makes that makes me happy.
Cristen: We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, we’re diving deeper into the not-so sweet, sweet fantasy baby of Mariah Carey’s ascent to divadom.
Caroline: Stick around for that vision of love.
[Stinger]
[CLIP - Matt Lauer interview (Nightline)]
Matt Lauer: Mariah Carey is the best-selling female artist in history. She’s sold over 115 million albums. With her success came a reputation that she was a “demanding artist” — which sometimes translates into “difficult.” Combine that all together and you get the title: “Diva.”
Mariah on stage: “I’m doing my best to be a diva this evening.”
Matt Lauer: “Let me read you something you said about that, OK?”
Mariah Carey: “OK.”
Matt Lauer: “The nature of my life, the nature of what I do is diva-dom.”
Mariah Carey: “Meaning this world in which I live is, you know, when people are doing your make-up and your hair and you’ve got an entourage, you may not even want an entourage. You may not even want half of these things. But it’s part of the whole swirl of, you know, show biz as a female artist.”
Matt Lauer: “Are you hard to work with?”
Mariah Carey: “No, I don’t think so.”
Matt Lauer: “Demanding?”
Mariah Carey: “I don’t think so. I didn’t even demand sleep for years. How demanding could I be? I never even had a lunch break half of the time.”
Cristen: We’re back, dahling. And that was the disgraced Matt Lauer pretty much summing up the inherent sexism of the diva label. You’re “demanding.” You’re “difficult.” You have a “reputation.” …. It’s so loaded Caroline!!
Caroline: It is so loaded, but it can also be fun, right? When I think of Mariah Carey’s reputation as a diva, honestly I’m immediately taken back to a little MTV show called Cribs. I will never forget this episode. You get the standard tour of Mariah’s house. Yes, she also does get into the bathtub on camera. She’s allowed to do whatever she wants in her home. That’s fine. But the part that really sticks out to me is the trip we take to her closet because she had an entire section dedicated to lingerie! Cristen, it was on hangers!!! My underpants are balled up in my drawer … so like I don’t know if having a lingerie closet makes someone a diva, but damn if it’s not aspirational
Cristen: I mean, it’s important to have goals, right?
Caroline: Well Cristen, let's get back to our convo with Chelsea Devantez because there’s a whole more we need to know about Mariah pre-divadom.
Chelsea: What's interesting about Mariah is how how little people know of her, so she she really had a viciously traumatic childhood, extremely traumatic through abuse, through her family, and also being half black and half white, all of the trauma that came with being a mixed race woman. And she really got out of that entirely on her own, put herself in the city, was really working her ass off. And then she meets Tommy Mottola, who is the evil, the evil villain in most celebrity female memoirs. You will see his name pop up all the time.
Cristen: Just for some background — Tommy Mottola was the head of SONY Music in the 90s. He signed and developed Destiny’s Child, the Dixie chicks and Céline Dion. He was THE diva-maker of his day.
Chelsea: but she meets him and she had the talent to make her career, no matter who she met. But when she met him, he's older. They get married. She got into a very abusive relationship with him. But what the public sees is young trollop marries rich, powerful man. And so immediately they started giving credit for her career to him like, oh, this is just some girl signed. Rather than this incredible musical genius that she is. Then she starts to get angry. Tommy is like putting cameras in the house and he won't let her leave and he won't let her. He's trying to make her appear more white and trying to whitewash her music and won't let her make musical decisions. And the public is treating her just like some dumb idiot. So then I think she gets angry from that and rebels against him in so many ways to the point where she literally has that famous, quote unquote, breakdown, which is ridiculous if you watch the TRL breakdown, it's it will shock you and how little of a breakdown it is.
[CLIP - Mariah on TRL]
Carson: And that was…
(Mariah singing)
Carson: What the hell was that? Mariah Carey! You gotta be kidding me.
Mariah: The ice cream truck..
Carson: I was just going to commercial..
Mariah: I can’t push this thing, hold on.
Caroline: So what you're hearing here is Mariah Carey crashing MTV’s TRL with Carson Daly in 2001. Mariah shows up unannounced on set in a big T-shirt, short shorts and heels, pushing an ice cream cart. She's TRYING to promote her new movie, Glitter
Cristen: Then, Mariah flings off her big ol’ T-shirt to reveal a crop top underneath. She tells Carson, “You’re my therapy session right now,” and Carson Daly says, “Mariah Carey’s lost her mind.”
Caroline: The media also pushed the story that she was totally losing it — but what they didn’t realize is that Mariah Carey was going through some reeeeallly challenging times, personally and professionally
Cristen: Well, what caused Mariah’s supposed breakdown. What was going on at the time?
Chelsea: So a bunch of things went into it. So basically, Mariah really wanted to do her music her way, wanted to write the song she wanted to write. And she also wanted to be an actor really badly. And Tommy would never let her do any of these things. He was trying to stifle her at every second. And he mostly really, really didn't want her to be an actress because he could control the music world. He can't control the acting world. So he didn't want her to act. So Mariah finally has her little affair with Derek Jeter and goes through a ton of psychotic hoops, including using a couples therapist that was previously Tommy's personal therapist that became theirs to get free of the relationship. She divorces him. She can finally take acting classes and she puts together Glitter, which is her dream project. It's kind of - the storyline somewhat follows real events in her life. And she finally gets to be an actor.
[CLIP - Glitter trailer]
In a world where proving yourself is everything … one woman is about to get the chance ...
Chelsea: And she has written all the music for it. Tommy finds out one of the songs in the movie and gives the hook away to Jennifer Lopez, which is where this feud comes from. And he starts fucking with the music on her. And the project is not going well. No one no one is sort of in control to make this like a creative success, the way Tommy used to be in control of her. And, you know, your biggest fear when you leave your abuser is that I will perish without them. They told me I'm going to perish without them. And what if that's true? What if I can't be a person without him and it starts happening to her? So Glitter is blowing up. Everyone hates Glitter, and she doesn't show up to work on one of these on one of these music videos that the company was like, you have to keep going, keep going to work. And she just couldn't. She hadn't slept in a long time. And there's interviews of her that summer tour where she's like, I haven't slept, I haven't been sleeping
[CLIP - MTV interview]
Mariah: Basically I exhausted myself because I was working 21-hour days, for at least two or three months straight.
Chelsea: When she goes to when she has her breakdown, her family is. Horrific, I mean, just a physical, emotional - her mom is the Karen of all Karens, they're they're not great and they guide her through that, quote unquote breakdown. So she is like having this breakdown when she's at her mom's. Her mom calls the cops on her. And Mariah in her book goes into the history of white women calling the cops on black people, only it's within her own home because Mariah’s dad's black, her siblings are black and her mom is white. And how many times her mom would call the cops in their own family. Her mom is the one who initially starts this breakdown. And when she goes on TRL, no one was promoting Glitter. It was going to be this huge failure. This was supposed to be her big you know, I divorced Tommy and I'm going to make it. And so she decides to go on TRL to try and promote it. And the promotion just goes horribly wrong. And if if you re-watch it. It does look like it's going wrong, but it doesn't look like a woman losing her mind. It looks like a woman under a lot of stress to me.
Cristen: Yeah, like a PR flop.
Chelsea: Yeah, yeah, it's like, oh, someone should have handled this better, but you're not like, oh my God, is she OK? I mean, still the clip from MTV, the title is still like Mariah Carey's like insane breakdown when in reality she's like trying to pull off this thing. And Carson Daly is the biggest dick to her. And he's making jokes about how, like, the camera should come in closer and they should turn on the AC so her nipples show and like, it's just a bummer all around. A real bummer.
Cristen: Love that Carson Daly still has a job, love, that he still has a job.
Chelsea: Still going.
Cristen: Um what do you think saved her?
Chelsea: Um, this will sound crazy. 9/11. She was in a like institution rehab place in L.A. It was the second one she checked into, and 9/11 happened. And people they just kind of let everyone go like, oh, you should go be back with your families because it was all these celebrities. And for Mariah, everyone was like, can you come sing Hero? Can you come sing Hero at our 9/11 fundraising concerts? And she puts on a white shirt, puts on some makeup, leaves the rehab and goes and sings Hero.
[CLIP: Mariah at 9-11 Tribute]
Mariah: And then a hero comes along, with the strength to carry on..
Caroline: Wow, I did not know that. Why do you think - it really seems, especially listening to your recap of her memoir, it really seems like she embraced the term and the idea in the spirit of diva, like, why do you think she's never really tried to? Why do you think she opted for that instead of trying to distance herself from it?
Chelsea: I don't think Mariah had a choice. I think her brand was already made before that point. To shift it would have been a pretty seismic endeavor. You know, like Dolly Parton handed us the brand. I have big boobs and I'm cute and sweet and everybody loves me. And I'll give you a little zinger to get out of it. And she makes the boob jokes. She took control of her sexuality is like, we will make fun of my boobs. We will know me for my boobs. And she made a lot of money off of that, which I think is so tight. Mariah was coming in this for the music and was really young and came from a traumatic childhood and went right into an abusive marriage. I think I mean, for me personally, it takes a lot of therapy to do anything in my life, to change anything in my life like. I think we kind of grew up with her in a way. And I think now she's at the point where this book was her saying, like, I work really hard. And just because I'm doing it in a sparkly leotard doesn't mean I'm not a songstress. That said, she's mad. Mariah is mad. She's mad at Jennifer Lopez in the book. She's mad at Céline Dion in the book, she's mad at a lot of - her mom. Like, she's got a lot of anger. And if you have a lot of anger, like how hard would it be to cover that up and pretend you're, like, cute and sweet? I couldn't do it. I can't do it now.
Cristen: We’re going to take a quick break, and our hearts WILL go on. Because up next, it’s time to talk about the Canadian chanteuse who also married a much older powerful man in the music industry …
Caroline: When we come back, Chelsea explains why Céline Dion’s divadom looks so different from Mariah’s … and how devouring celebrity memoirs has helped Chelsea process her own traumas as well
[Stinger]
[CLIP: - Jonathan Ross show]
Jonathan Ross: So you live in Vegas?
Céline Dion: Actually, I split my time between Las Vegas and Florida
Jonathan Ross: OK so you have a place - I hear you have your own waterpark.
Céline: Yes
Jonathan Ross: Well you say yes like it’s a matter of fact thing, like yeah. You have a waterpark!
Céline: Why not? Some people do drugs and go out every weekend. I build a waterpark.
Cristen: We’re back. And Caroline, I can’t even imagine what it's like to be personal-waterpark rich. I’m barely slip-n-slide rich!
Caroline: Girl, I could not even afford to buy an inflatable baby pool at the start of pandemic lockdown. All right, before the break, we were talking with Celebrity Book Club host Chelsea Devantez about the way trauma has informed Mariah’s career moves. Céline Dion has her own complicated back story.
Cristen: How would you describe Céline Dion's version of being a diva?
Chelsea: Wow Céline is so different. And I did do a Céline Dion episode. So both of these women had a very controlling manager slash husband in their lives. He was both. The difference is that Céline met her manager when she was 12 years old, Rene, who she goes on to marry when she's in her 20s and they start a romantic relationship when she's in - when she's a teenager. She was really groomed into that in a way that is very apparent in her own book when she's retelling it, and she's telling it in a very positive way. Where you're like, oh, my God, you were 12 and this man was by your side every second of your life, taught you how to think about yourself, how to like yourself, how to have self-worth, how to perform, how to - everything. Even though that's negative, that relationship had a lot of care in it. Like at least he was caring for her career and trying to give her self-esteem in a way that obviously connects her to him. But Mariah was sort of at the same time fending for herself and her sister was going to be making her a prostitute if she didn't run away when she's 11, like two totally different childhoods. And then Céline had Rene by her side really controlling and protecting everything until he passed away. So their diva-doms are very differently. I think Céline is a diva for sure, because she lives in a little world that Rene created for her when she was 12 years old. And she's never left it. She's never stepped outside the bubble. Any self-awareness she's lacking is because she was put in this little island and has lived there and has never been let out. And so she she acts from a very sincere place and just hasn't been exposed to a lot of things, where Maria has been exposed to everything and has to, like, fight for herself.
Cristen: Yeah, I was going to say that in that Céline Dion episode, she she really comes across as just blithely ignorant to -
Chelsea: Yeah, it's pretty frustrating.
Cristen: The ways that like the normal the average person lives. And I was wondering if you felt like that, if you would categorize that as diva behavior or a coping mechanism.
Chelsea: I mean, I would describe all diva behavior as coping mechanisms that is like at its core, it's just like I am a woman trying to have a life. But, yeah, I mean, Céline is so tough. Céline is really off-putting sometimes. And at the core of it, though, you realize like no one exposed her to the news, you know, and this older man who's going to end up taking her virginity and and and controlling every moment of her life is whispering in her ear every night before she goes on stage. Just imagine this. An older gentleman, you're 12 years old, an old man every night whispers in your ear, you are the greatest. You are the best. No one can do what you do. Like, how do you grow up to not be a fucking monster? You know, we're lucky she's as nice as she is.
Chelsea: I think what's interesting about her is, do you guys remember when the flood hit New Orleans and Céline Dion sent a million dollars before George Bush did anything, and she was on Larry King and cried, do you remember that?
Caroline: No!
Cristen: No.
Chelsea: OK, so this is this is where I really come around on Céline. So she's she's on Larry King Live, and she is sobbing and she's known she's always been a very emotional crier. But she is I mean, it is wild. But you can tell, like, she was put in a bubble and then she got to turn on the news one day and saw what was happening in this devastation. And she’s sobbing and losing her mind.
[CLIP - Larry King Live clip]
Céline: There’s people still there. Waiting to be rescued. For me it’s not acceptable. I know there are reasons for it. But I don’t want to hear those reasons. Some people are stealing or making a big deal out of it. Who cares. They are not gonna go to far with it. Maybe those people are so poor, they’ve never touched any thing in their lives. Let them touch those things for once. The main thing right now, is not the people stealing. It’s the people who are left there and they are watching helicopters flying over their heads and they are praying.
Chelsea: And then Larry's like, I, I don't remember the transition, but he was like, Céline, do you want to sing for us? And she's like, What? And he's like, yeah. Do you want to, like, sing a song for for, I don't know, sing a song right now. And Céline has been told like she is an angel from heaven and her voice is a gift for the world. And she's often like, OK, like I need to do this for you. I am a servant to you with my magical voice. And so she's like, OK, OK. I cannot think of a song right now, but I can think of a prayer. It's this prayer that was turned into one of her famous songs and then she just full on, sings this song for three minutes at camera.
[CLIP - Céline singing, Larry King Live clip]
I pray you’ll be alright..and watch us where we go..and help us to be wise...in times when we don’t know..
Chelsea: It is a fucking masterpiece. And I think that that exists because she is such a weirdo who was held away from the world and then we put out put through her out into the world. You know, she never went to school like all this stuff. And then she comes out swinging like that. It's really cool.
Cristen: So both Céline and Mariah were called upon in moments of national crisis to use their talents to heal the nation?
Chelsea: Yes, very true. Eh that is such a good point. Yeah, we absolutely did that. And they absolutely gave money when our government didn't. And bringing in Dolly Parton, you know, she gave a million dollars to the vaccine.
Caroline: Oh man, I think you just named president, vice president and secretary of state right there.
Cristen: I was about to call for Mount Rushmore. Let's get get those dudes off there. Let's get Céline, Mariah, Dolly, you know. Fuck.
Caroline: Well, how has Céline's treatment as a diva in the media differed from Mariah's?
Chelsea: Yeah, I mean, I think we give I think we give Céline a lot more respect. I don't even know if I want to say respect, but she wasn't treated the way Mariah was, which I think is for two reasons. Even though Céline has done quote unquote, is like you wouldn't say like sexy, like even when she is in her little outfits, she is not overly sexualized, whereas Mariah Carey was put in little white underwear with a rainbow over it and blasted out to the universe. So I think the fact that, again, less sexuality, I think people treat her with a little more respect keeps going back to the word, but they're a little more respectful with their diva treatment.
Cristen: So, like, we we will appreciate your talent as long as you aren't distractingly sexy and attractive.
Chelsea: Yeah. Like, do you think you're fuck-able then, like, you’re a stupid dumb bitch and you have no talent.
Caroline: Yeah, how do you think that - I mean, speaking of talent, like how do you think that their talent has been scrutinized differently?
Chelsea: I weirdly think Céline has really been given more her due than Mariah. I mean, Céline does not write music. She does not write her songs. And often she wasn't making the really artistic decisions in her career that influenced music. A lot of that was Rene. And Céline has this incredible voice. She'll go on vocal rest for three weeks. She's like very - she's an incredible musician in that way. But Mariah gave us cultural trends. She changed music, her tastes or influences, the songs she wrote. She pretty much like invented the modern Christmas album. She did all these things that we just haven't given her credit for at all.
Caroline: So it seems like … Mariah is perhaps the more culturally significant diva, question mark?
Chelsea: Um, you know, I will push back and say I refuse to pin to divas against each other and we need them both,
Caroline: Absolutely
Chelsea: I think. But I do think you could answer that question personally. I think personally, I didn't even realize the effect Céline Dion had on me and my childhood until I read this book and realized like, oh, she really was a big part of my childhood and wanting to do talent shows. But Mariah was really influencing me in the moment. Including like, you know, she has really big cheekbones. I have really big cheekbones. And so, you know, just like little things where you're kind of looking to her to guide your your teenage experience. I feel like Mariah did more of that, you know, in terms of and again, a lot of talent show songs. I really tried to sing a lot of these songs. And just like things that she gave to my life, I always knew Mariah had a huge influence and I didn't realize how big of an influence Céline had to later.
Cristen: Does the diva still exist?
Chelsea: I don't know. I mean, do we consider Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish - like do we I don't think we put those diva labels on them. And probably for the best. Maybe it's a branding thing where it's like, actually, we're not doing that to women anymore. Can you believe it?
Cristen: I don't know, the first person who comes to mind to me is a Lady Gaga, but I feel like she's somehow not I don't know I don't know that I've noticed her being labeled as a diva.
Chelsea: Yeah, maybe it's not happening anymore for the best. I mean, people are definitely called difficult, you know, or but I, I. I yeah, Lady Gaga, maybe she's also just opened up too much about the struggle, and so now people don't feel like it's fair to call her a diva because you can see her wounds so openly. I'm not sure.
Caroline: Yeah, I mean, that that trauma aspect is a recurring theme in in a lot of these celebrity memoirs, like you said, whether that's trauma from childhood or were having some type of breakdown. And I'm curious if reading all of these memoirs, both like personally when you're going to Wal-Mart and then for the show, has that helped you? Has that helped you in your own experience, like your own dealing with your own trauma or difficult experiences?
Chelsea: This will sound so corny, but these books have saved my life and continue to save my life. I, I had a really traumatic childhood myself and. And it it really makes you wonder if a certain type of person is drawn to the arts, but what I think is more likely is that a lot of people have trauma in their life, but because they become celebrities, they will open up about it in their books. And they're really all of them or most of them are incredible roadmaps into how you truly master your trauma and become a more powerful, successful, hopefully better woman. They've really changed my life. They saved my life when I found them as a kid. And I just like wanted to know how to survive. And even now, I mean, Demi Moore's book about like finding out her dad's not her real dad profoundly affected me because that same thing happened to me. And now I'm able to speak about it publicly in a way that I saved for friends and family before. I would make jokes about it. But I wasn't really open about the pain of it. When you've had a traumatic childhood and you talk about trauma, your your brain tends to shut down. It's really hard. And these books, right, when you're talking about something really difficult for your brain and heart to be open to will be like, oh, and by the way, Ashton Kutcher was a total dick and cheated on me. And it's such a great like - they're the only they're - I love reading these more than self-help books more than anything, because my brain stays active. They're fun. They bring me enough joy that I can, like, soak up the dark parts. So, yeah, these books mean a lot to me. And even though they're trash, they are beautiful trash and and trash is my favorite thing.
Caroline: What other elements of their stories have jumped out and helped you?
Chelsea: You know, just the story existing at all. Like I. I think trauma really lives when it really breeds in shame and shame comes from silence, and especially with, like a lot of things women go through, we are made to believe that it's like, you know, your fault or you're alone or you brought this on in some way. And so even like when Me Too happened and you just recognize like you're not alone, you know, this is actually happening to everyone. It alleviates so much shame. And with these books, you know, there's things that I thought could have only ever happened to me. And then you read them in a book and you feel like, oh, my God, I'm not alone. And then I think just for me, seeing someone like that be brave enough to share has made me be brave enough to share in my art. And then the act of sharing is very healing because it's very hard to do. It's very, very hard to to share your horrors and yeah, these women pushing me to shame then heals you feeling shameful because there's nothing you know, the act of sharing is like an antonym to shame.
Caroline: Well, what have you heard back from listeners of your show?
Chelsea: Like, oh, my God, what if I cry on your guys’ podcast, but that's the other thing, too, I'm a full on comedian who has cried on podcasts like how fucking embarrassing is that. It has been. It's been totally life changing, and I didn't I think, like we've put out this idea of like what normal is in the world, that's just not true. And a lot of people have reached out to me to say they feel the same ways or have gone through similar things. And it's like way too many people for us to think these things aren't happening to us all the time, you know? And I've never I've just like I used to always feel so alone and like no one would understand me. And now I feel like lots of people understand me. I'm like, really not alone. And it's it's I don't think I'll ever be the same. Oh, sorry, this is so I'm like full on crying on your podcast sorry. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. I totally underestimated it. You know, especially every comedian has a podcast. I really didn't want one. It was like it's just like no, I don't want to be another comedian with a podcast. And then and then to see that it just like is the most beautiful thing I've ever been a part of. I'm like, I can't believe I almost missed this.
Caroline: You can find Chelsea Devantez on Instagram @chelseadevantez. There, she recaps all the celeb memoirs she reads on her Insta stories. Plus, don’t forget to listen to her podcast Celebrity Book Club! Y’all she has an episode coming up on Sharon Stone’s memoir ... I will be riveted.
Cristen: And because we love our 90s divas music so much, we have a Divas Spotify playlist we made especially for this episode! We’ll link to it in the episode description.
Caroline: You can find us on instagram, facebook and Twitter @unladylikemedia. You can also support Cristen and me by joining our Patreon; you’ll get weekly bonus episodes, listener advice and our undying love at patreon.com/unladylikemedia.
Cristen: Nora Ritchie is the senior producer of Unladylike. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing is by Andi Kristins. Sound design and additional music is by Casey Holford and Andi Kristins. Executive producers are Peter Clowney, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media.
Caroline: This podcast was created by your hosts, Caroline Ervin
Cristen: And Cristen Conger of Unladylike Media.
Caroline: Next week, we’re doing something brand new on the pod: It’s our first installment of our Ask Unladylike. Caroline and I will be answering your burning questions about complicated friendships, toxic workplaces, and relationships.
Cristen: You don’t want to miss this episode! Make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike. Find us in stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Caroline: And remember, got a problem?
Cristen: Get Unladylike.