Mariah Carey Makes *This* Much From Her Song ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’
Take a peek at the singles charts right now and you'll probably see a familiar title that tends to make its appearance around this time every year. Yep, it's been 29 holiday cheer-filled years since Mariah Carey released her iconic holiday single, "All I Want for Christmas Is You"in 1994, and it's still an absolute banger. Seriously, the people come back to this holiday staple year after year, and the Top 50 Chart on Spotify is definitely all the evidence you need.
Every year, the song also rises swiftly on the Billboard Hot 100, reminding everyone that Mariah is pure Christmas royalty—and she is embracing the fact that she has a hold on everyone during the holiday season. Ms. Claus, who?
"It's so exciting because it’s at Christmas, which is my favorite, but it's also like, what a validating thing to have happen [to] my first Christmas song that I ever wrote," she told Billboard. "How did I know that that was going to become a thing every year? I couldn’t have known it. And I've grown to love it more...it makes me happy every year."
Mariah fans looking to get into the holiday spirit can stream Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas To All!, which you can stream on Paramount+ all season long. The two hour concert special, which dropped in 2022, features Mariah performing a slew of her hits.
Speaking of holiday spirit, Mariah's been cashing in on Christmas for decades. So much so that her current net worth is a merry amount of money—to the tune of over $350 million, according to CelebrityNetWorth.com.
Here's how the pop star made all that (Christmas cookie) dough:
Mariah's made millions off of her iconic holiday hit.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America, Mariah is the best-selling female artist of all time when it comes to albums. She has sold a total of 74 million albums, which means she likely sees a few dollars off every album sold, after earning out her advance against royalties.
In 2017, The Economist reported that Mariah earned $60 million in royalties for "All I Want for Christmas Is You" alone, from the time it released in 1994. (That's an average of $2.6 million per year!) In total, she's made roughly $75.6 million from the song, and that's not including what she'll make this year, per Forbes. Celebrity Net Worth estimates that she'll net a cool $600,000 in 2023 on royalties for "All I Want for Christmas Is You."
(P.S. The #iconic holiday song apparently took only 15 minutes to write!)
Peep Mariah's music video for "All I Want For Christmas Is You" below:
Her debut album was released in 1990.
Mariah started off as a background singer for Brenda K. Starr, but quickly rose up in the world. In 1988, she met Tommy Mottola, the head of Columbia Records at the time, at an industry event. Mariah slipped him her demo tape, and he wanted to sign her immediately, NBC Bay Area reported.
Her debut album was released in 1990, and since then, she's become the first female artist to sell 70 million albums in the United States, Vibe reported.
And along the way, she married and divorced Tommy.
After divorcing Mottola in 1998, she signed to EMI's Virgin Records, who gave her $28 million in a severance payment when she left, per The New York Times. When she signed with Universal Music Group, the deal was that she'd be paid around $7.5 for each album, the outlet reported.
Today, Mariah's royalties and streams have paid TF off.
The royalties Mariah collects from her music are about 20 percent, plus she gets multi-million dollar advances when it comes to her albums, per The Wall Street Journal. It's mainly because of her songwriting abilities, according to Forbes.
Since Spotify pays artists at least $0.0033 per stream, according to USA Today, and she has 57,092,967 monthly listeners as of December 2023 (up from last year's 53.8 million), that means she makes around $188,406 per month, if each listener streams a song just once.
The other platforms (Apple Music, Amazon Music, etc.) contribute even more to the money she makes just from streams.
Her divorces have been kept pretty private.
The settlement of her divorce from Tommy Mottola in 1998 is not public, so it's unknown whether she gained anything at that time.
But she was married to Nick Cannon from 2008 to 2016, separating in 2014, PEOPLE wrote. Her yearly income totaled $6.3 million in 2014, according to TMZ. Mariah doesn't have to pay Nick any money according to their settlement. However, Nick pays $5,000 a month into a trust fund for their twins. (Frankly, that's a drop in the bucket compared to the reported $3 million dollars a year he pays in child support between his 11 kids, per The New York Post.)
Mariah's also raking in the dollars from book deals.
In 2015, Mariah released a children's book with Doubleday Books for Young Readers at Penguin Random House, titled All I Want for Christmas Is You. (Starting to see a theme here?)
It's about "a young girl whose greatest Christmas wish is for a new puppy," giving new meaning to the song.
All I Want for Christmas Is You
amazon.com
$34.16
She also released a memoir written with Michaela Angela Davis in 2020, per Variety. That fall, her book topped the best seller charts for nonfiction, per Billboard.
"Wow. Stunned, humbled & grateful. Writing this memoir nearly consumed my life for the last three years," she wrote in a tweet.
Wow. Stunned, humbled & grateful. Writing this memoir nearly consumed my life for the last three years. ❤️U MAD. ???????? to everyone who has taken the time to read my story & make this dream a reality. It almost makes it tolerable to have lived through these experiences! LOL ???????????? pic.twitter.com/4uzofhNPao
— Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) October 8, 2020
In November 2022, Mariah added to her author status with her debut children's novel, The Christmas Princess. She best described the book as, “fairytale for holiday lovers of all ages” made for “all children, especially those who feel like outsiders or ‘others,’ striving to believe in themselves,” per Vibe.
The book made the bestsellers list in the Children’s Performing Arts Fiction, Children’s Self-Esteem Books, and Children’s Christmas Books categories on Amazon.
Mariah owns some wow-worthy real estate.
Mariah is bicoastal, splitting her time between a home she rents in Beverly Hills and a triplex apartment in New York City's Tribeca neighborhood, per Celebrity Net Worth.
In November 2021, she paid $5.65 million for a 4.2-acre property with a 16,000-square-foot Colonial mansion in the Sandy Springs suburb of Atlanta, Georgia. She listed the home for sale in September 2022 for $6.5 million.
According to Architectural Digest, the home sold for $4.3 million in June 2023.
Here's a video tour:
She also owns a vacation home in the Bahamas.
And she's done a lot of endorsements.
I'm talking Intel Centrino (for computers), Angel Champagne (which goes for $290,000 per bottle), Pepsi, McDonald's, Milk Bar, and more, according to Parade. She also has her own perfume and her own Irish cream liqueur brand, Black Irish.
M By Mariah Carey
amazon.com
$39.99
CourtesyMariah's made bank from multiple TV appearances.
In 2019, Amazon released a documentary detailing the origins and massive success of "All I Want for Christmas Is You." Fun fact: Mariah says she decorated the studio with Christmas decorations even though it wasn't the holidays.
And remember when she signed on to judge American Idol in 2013? Apparently, her contract was worth $18 million for one year with an option to renew, according to People.
She also had an eight-episode reality series, Mariah's World, with E! from 2016 to 2017, per Variety.
And for the 2023 holiday season, she'll most likely make a healthy amount of money.
And she snagged tons of ticket sales for her holiday shows.
Presented by the Hallmark Channel, Mariah's 2019 holiday tour spanned six cities, including a five-show residency at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Since 2014, she's toured during the holiday season, which grossed about $16.5 million as of 2019, per Billboard. This year, that total may rise well over $26.4 million.
"The hope now is to take [her Christmas show] and really make it an annual event that takes on a much wider, worldwide appeal," Mariah's longtime agent, Rob Light, told the publication. Check out this year's tour dates.
It's also not her first residency in Las Vegas. In 2015, Mariah signed a $30 million deal for a two-year residency at Caesar's Palace.
So, what's Mariah Carey's net worth in 2023?
Her current net worth is a jolly amount of money. I'm talking to the tune of between $350 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. That's no joke!
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