Mariah Carey in Seventh Grade at Oldfield Junior High in Greenlawn, New York, in 1982 and Mariah Carey in 2011
Mariah Carey… beauty school dropout? Believe it or not, it’s true. Carey didn’t have much interest in attending classes during high school days, preferring instead to write music with her friends, but she did have time to learn about hair and makeup.
“I went to beauty school," she told the
Los Angeles Times. “Five hundred hours in 11th grade.” Since her debut album in 1990 featuring the hit songs
“Someday” and
“Vision of Love,” Carey has become one of the most successful solo artists of all time, selling upward of 200 million albums. Carey’s movie debut a decade ago, in
Glitter, was not exactly a success (it was panned by critics and landed her in the hospital for stress and exhaustion), but she received high praise for her gritty role in
Precious in 2009. The mom of twins with husband Nick Cannon revealed the title of her upcoming album
The Art of Letting Go.