Mariah Carey

That stunning voice–no one can deny its power. It’s one of the reasons why fans have made Mariah Carey the only artist to have a hit single every year of the ’90s. Now known as one of pop’s most powerful performers, it took 20 years for the girl from Long Island to become a pop princess–and even less time to watch as some of the luster faded from her glittery life. Born to an opera-singing mother and a Venezuelan father, Carey struggled with identity issues as a young woman. While living in Manhattan trying to jumpstart her music career, Carey took on a series of odd jobs, including singing backup for Brenda K. Starr. But it was a chance meeting with Tommy Mottola, the president of Columbia Records, that would change her life. Mottola quickly signed Carey to her first record contract, and the two later married. To outsiders, it seemed a perfect end to the fairy tale. But in 1997, the fairy tale ended when divorce hit. She dropped Columbia for a multimillion-dollar deal with Virgin. And then, with the less-than-stellar performance of her new single and her first starring role in the movie Glitter, Mariah Carey found herself in a hospital recuperating from exhaustion.