Mariah Carey is a household name. The now 53-year-old singer has made record-breaking achievements during her career and every Christmas, whether you like it or not, a certain song starts playing, and it’s all we want for the holidays from there. But besides the obvious, like her immense talent and charming personality, what else do you know about the American starlet? Here are nine facts we bet you didn’t know yet. 1. She’s named after a song from a Broadway musical Mariah Carey was born on March 27, 1969, with a name derived from the stage. According to E!, Alfred Roy Carey and Patricia Hickey named their daughter after the song They Call The Wind Maria – which is pronounced “Mariah” despite its different spelling – from the 1951 Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon . So perhaps it was destiny that Carey would go on to become one of the most successful pop stars of all time. 2. Carey takes after her mother, who is a Juilliard-trained opera singer and a vocal coach Carey reportedly wowed her mum by imitating her operatic singing at just two years old. She started vocal lessons when she was four and quickly honed her skills so that after graduating high school she could move to New York City and pursue her dreams. The luxury lives of Kourtney Kardashian’s children Despite their common talent, Carey and her mother’s relationship has been far from perfect. In her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey , the singer shared their struggles throughout the years. According to an excerpt in People , Patricia once told her, “You should only hope that one day you become half the singer I am.” “Still, to this day, what she said haunts and hurts me. I don’t know if she meant to cut me down to size or it was just her bruised ego talking; all I know is that those words that shot out of her mouth pierced my chest and were buried in my heart,” Carey wrote in her memoir. 3. Before hitting it big, Carey attended cosmetology school in Manhattan After moving to New York City, Carey enrolled in beauty school to keep her busy while she figured out how to turn her musical dreams into reality. She and Stephen Colbert talked in September 2020 about the impressive 500 hours worth of studying she did and why she thought learning how to do her hair and make-up would be beneficial to her musical career. Passing time in quarantine... My 500 hours of beauty school came in handy! 🤣 pic.twitter.com/Rh2hbK2hcs — Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) April 3, 2020 Although she ultimately dropped out of beauty school, Carey has put her skills to use during the coronavirus pandemic. In April, the singer tweeted a video of her giving her daughter, Monroe, an at-home salon day. She wrote, “Passing time in quarantine … My 500 hours of beauty school came in handy!” 4. Her role as Brenda K. Starr’s backup singer led to her landing a record deal After working odd jobs, Carey finally got her first break and began singing backup vocals for Brenda K. Starr in the late 1980s, according to New Jersey 105.1. Starr handed Carey’s demo to then-chairman and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment Tommy Mottola (who would become Carey’s first husband) and the young singer’s fate as a pop superstar was sealed. 5. Carey is slightly obsessed with Marilyn Monroe Ever since receiving a copy of Norman Mailer’s biography of Marilyn Monroe for Christmas as a child, Carey has been obsessed with the actress, she told The Guardian in 2014. So much so that, in 1999, Carey bought Monroe’s baby grand piano at auction for over US$600,000 and even named her daughter after the actress. How rich is Lady Gaga really? Inside her gigantic net worth She also wrote in her new memoir that, in place of her abusive family, her only childhood friend was the poster of Monroe hanging on her bedroom wall. Part of her admiration stems from Monroe’s impact on women in Hollywood. “Marilyn Monroe Productions was the first female-owned production company in Hollywood,” she told The Guardian . “She paved the way for women in Hollywood, and every single woman owes something to her for that, whether they agree with her image or not.” 6. Patti LaBelle is Carey’s godmother Unlike most godparents, LaBelle wasn’t named Carey’s godmother at birth. LaBelle told Wendy Williams in 2010 that Carey asked her to be her godmother and she said yes. “I wanted to be – I love that voice, I mean, you don’t find many voices like that,” LaBelle said. “So she just asked me and I said, ‘Of course, you’re my godchild.’” During an appearance on Busy Tonight, LaBelle told host Busy Philipps that she has mentored Carey (and other women including Beyoncé and Mary J. Blige) for many years, and occasionally had to talk some sense into her. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mariah Carey (@mariahcarey) In 2019, Carey posted a video to her Instagram of the two singing a duet of her 2018 single With You. 7. Ex-husband Nick Cannon has said he and Carey had sex to the singer’s music “She makes sexy music. She got the Don’t Forget About Us , the We Belong Together … I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person in the world that listens to Mariah Carey when having sex, it just so happens I’m having sex with Mariah Carey,” Cannon told HuffPost in 2013. 5 times Will Smith lost his cool and got in trouble The couple, who have two children together, married in 2008 after just weeks together, but they split in 2014. They filed for divorce two years later. 8. Carey’s support of the LGBTQ+ community won her the GLAAD Ally Award in 2016 The award is given to a media figure who uses their platform to support and advance LGBTQ+ equality and acceptance, according to the organisation’s website. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mariah Carey (@mariahcarey) Speaking of Carey, GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said, “Through her music and outspoken support, Mariah Carey has inspired and empowered countless LGBT fans across the globe”. Ellis continued, “She is a long-time ally and friend to the LGBT community who has worked tirelessly to move acceptance and inclusion forward.” 9. She is the only artist in history to have a No 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in four different decades After Mariah Carey’s 1994 hit All I Want For Christmas Is You ranked No 1 on the first Billboard Hot 100 chart of 2020, she became the first artist to have No 1s in four different decades: 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020. Who were the best and worst dressed stars of the Oscars 2022? In fact, she’s among the bestselling solo artists of all time. She’s had 19 songs top the Hot 100, and had more No 1 hits than Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley. Only The Beatles have had more No 1 hits, with 20. This article originally appeared on Insider . Want more stories like this? Follow STYLE on Facebook , Instagram , YouTube and Twitter .