Mariah Carey is going on the record — and taking her sorrows to the studio.
Since splitting with billionaire fiancé James Packer in October, the Grammy winner, 46, “has been putting all her pain into a new album,” a Carey source reveals in the new issue of Us Weekly. “She wants it to have the big heartbreak ballads she’s famous for.”
To help, Carey has enlisted producer Jermaine Dupri, who cohelmed her 2005 smash album, The Emancipation of Mimi. “They want to re-create that vibe,” adds the insider. “She wants to duplicate her old success.”
As Us previously reported, Carey and Packer cut ties after they got into a fight during a recent vacation in Greece. While planning their wedding on board his yacht, Packer flipped a switch, according to a source close to the mom of twins Monroe and Moroccan, 5. “It was like Jekyll and Hyde,” adds the insider. “Suddenly he’s like, ‘I don’t think I can do this.’”
For her part, Carey is still rocking her massive, er, rock. According to California law, she doesn’t have to return the 35-carat engagement ring that Packer gave her in January.
“If the recipient cancels the wedding, then the recipient has to give back the ring because the ring was a conditional gift — the condition being the recipient had to marry the donor,” Attorney Stacy D. Phillips explained to Us. “If the donor breaks it off, then the recipient can keep the ring. If they decide together mutually to cancel the wedding then the recipient has to return the ring.”
