Mariah Carey On The First Time She Performed Her Christmas Hit: ‘It Was Boring’
On the 25th anniversary of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” being released, it has finally hit No.1 on the Billboard 100. It is Mariah’s 19th No. 1.
The singer sat with Billboard to discuss the continuous popularity of the hit. She says, “We definitely wanted to kick it into high gear this year with the song to celebrate the 25th anniversary, but I definitely didn’t expect it to hit No. 1 two weeks before Christmas. I just want to thank everybody. I want the world to have the best holiday ever.”
Mariah also talks about the first time she performed the song live. She explains the evening, saying, ” That was a really defining moment of my career. It was a charity event, and we raised over half a million dollars for the Fresh Air Fund [a nonprofit that provides summer programs for children from low-income communities]. That’s the reason the whole thing is so important. I’m just like, ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever. I remember it. It was boring. It was all rich people. They barely clapped. Nobody knew ‘All I Want for Christmas’ yet.’ But then the kids in the front were all Fresh Air Fund kids, and they were all clapping in Fresh Air Fund T-shirts. They fueled me. Those kids gave me so much life.”
To celebrate “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Mariah also re-released a new version of the video. Watch it below.
