Mariah Carey is no stranger to hit songs—she’s had plenty throughout the years. From “Hero” to “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” Carey is one of the most iconic singers of our time. Beyond music, the celebrated performer has starred in award-winning films, written books, launched her own fragrance brands, and even started an arts camp for inner-city youth. Both on and off the stage, the New York native seems to have done it all. Here, take a look at some of the singer’s most incredible career moments.

Carey was born in 1969 in Huntington, NY, to Patricia Hickey, a vocal coach and former opera singer, and Alfred Roy Carey, an aeronautical engineer. After her parents’ divorce, Carey had little contact with her father and lived with her mother and older brother.

In December 1988, Carey was discovered by the head of Columbia Records, Tommy Mottola. As the story goes, she handed him her demo tape while at a party, and he listened to it while driving home. He loved her sound so much that he turned his car around to go back to the party to try and find her, but she had already left. He then spent the next two weeks trying to track her down. He finally did, and Columbia Records signed her a short while later. The singer made her first public appearance singing “America the Beautiful” at the 1990 NBA Finals.

In 1990, Carey dropped her first self-titled studio album. Even though initial reception was slow, the album became the best-selling album in the United States in 1991 and topped the Billboard 200 charts for 11 weeks. Carey also won big at the Grammys that year—she nabbed Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her single "Vision of Love."

Later that year, the singer released her second album, Emotions, which she worked on with producers Walter Afanasieff, Robert Clivillés, and David Cole of C+C Music Factory fame. Although the title track made it onto the Billboard charts, this album didn’t do as well commercially as Carey’s debut album.

Because Carey didn’t go on a world tour, some people believed she couldn’t replicate her vocal range and perfect pitch live. However, the singer shared that stage fright and the challenging nature of her songs contributed to her lack of touring. To help put rumors to rest, the singer gave an intimate, stripped-down performance on MTV in 1992. The program was a hit.

The following year Carey released her third studio album, Music Box. Even though the album got mixed reviews from critics, it remains one of the singer’s best-selling albums, and its second single, “Hero,” has become one of Carey’s most popular songs.

In 1993, a 24-year-old Carey married Mottola, who was roughly 20 years her senior, in a huge New York City wedding that cost half a million dollars. Soon after, the couple moved to a 51-acre estate in Bedford, NY.

When did you last go through a holiday season without hearing “All I Want For Christmas Is You”? Initially released in late-1994, this song was part of Carey’s colossal Christmas album, Merry Christmas, which is the best-selling Christmas album of all time.

The following year, Carey put out her fifth studio album, Daydream, a collection of songs that leaned more towards R&B and hip-hop. Critics loved the album, and its second single with Boyz II Men, “One Sweet Day,” remained at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for 16 weeks in a row. Here, the singer poses while shooting promotional shots for the album's lead single, "Fantasy."

While recording Daydream, Carey began working on a secret alternative music project called Chick with friend Clarissa Dane. Unfortunately, Carey’s record label didn’t let her put her name on the project (they believed it would hurt her image), and Chick’s album, Somebody’s Ugly Daughter, performed poorly.

Although Daydream and its singles were nominated in six categories at the Grammys that year, Carey surprisingly didn’t win any awards.

Besides music, the singer has always been a passionate philanthropist. Here, she poses with children at Camp Mariah, an arts camp in upstate New York for inner-city youth created in collaboration with the Fresh Air Fund.

Moving away from pop ballads, the singer began to work with different producers, including Sean Combs, Missy Elliott, and Q-Tip. Here, Carey smiles with Combs and Combs’ mother while attending one of his events.

In 1997, Carey divorced Mottola, citing that he was becoming increasingly controlling. “There was a conscious effort to keep me as this all-American, whatever that means, girl," the singer told Cosmopolitan in 2019. “It was very ­controlled. There was no ­freedom for me as a human being. It was almost like being a prisoner.”

After her divorce from Mottola, Carey debuted a new, sultry look paired with breathier vocals in Butterfly, her fifth studio album. The songstress has said that she considers Butterfly her “magnum opus.”

In 1998, Carey took the stage with Aretha Franklin, Céline Dion, Shania Twain, and more during VH1 Divas, a concert that benefited the Save the Music Foundation.

A year after her divorce, Carey began a new relationship with Mexican singer Luis Miguel.

1998 proved to be busy for the performer—she began to work on her next album, Glitter, wrote songs for Men in Black and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and released a greatest hits collection just in time for the holidays. Carey and Whitney Houston dueted on one of the included tracks, “When You Believe,” which also was featured on The Prince of Egypt soundtrack.

In 1999, Carey satisfied her contract with Sony by releasing her seventh studio album, Rainbow. The singer, eager to leave the label as her ex-husband still headed it, worked with songwriter Diane Warren and producer David Foster to finish the album in just three months.

Billboard honored the singer that same year by giving her an Artist of the Decade Award and a World Music Award for Best-Selling Pop Female Artist of the Millennium.

After a three year relationship, Carey and Miguel decided to part ways in 2001.

After leaving Columbia Records, the singer signed a $100 million five-album contract with Virgin Records. Glitter was Carey’s first album with the new label, and acted as the soundtrack to the film of the same name in which Carey starred. Here, she smiles while promoting the album at a local FYE music store.

Carey suffered from a mental and physical breakdown during the summer of 2001, causing her to act erratically. Here, she is pictured during her first public appearance after spending a few weeks in inpatient treatment at a hospital in Connecticut.

In 2001, Carey’s contract with Virgin Records was bought out by Island Records for $28 million. The singer described her time with Virgin as “a complete and total stress fest.”

Carey added another film to her resume with the release of WiseGirls, a movie about a waitress who becomes involved with the mob. Here, she poses with her costars, Mira Sorvino and Melora Walters, at the film’s Sundance Film Festival premiere.

Besides WiseGirls, 2002 brought Carey another studio album titled Charmbracelet. However, it wasn’t received well by critics.

A few years later, the singer released The Emancipation of Mimi, which she worked on with The Neptunes, Kanye West, and Jermaine Dupri. A stand-out track on the chart-topping album was “We Belong Together.” The album won multiple Grammys and was also the best-selling album in the United States in 2005.

2005 was a good year for Carey when it came to the Billboard Music Awards—she won several.

The following year, Carey’s single “Touch My Body” from her 2007 album E=MC² topped the Billboard Hot 100. It became the singer’s eighteenth number-one song.

Carey starred in another film, Tennessee, in 2008 which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Here, she’s pictured standing alongside Tribeca Film Festival co-founder Robert De Niro, actor Ben Kingsley, and producer Lee Daniels.

Although Carey had met actor, rapper, and comedian Nick Cannon a few years earlier, the two didn’t start seriously dating until 2008. The couple was only together for around two months before tying the knot, and gave birth to twins a few years later.

One year later, the singer performed her hit song "Hero" at Barack Obama’s Neighborhood Inaugural Ball.

Carey once again went in front of the camera for Precious. The performer played a social worker and won a Breakthrough Performance Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival for her role.

Carey appeared on an episode of The View with her dog, Chachita, to promote her twelfth studio album, Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel. Even though it took the number three spot on the Billboard Hot 200 when it was first released, it was the singer's worst-selling album.

In addition to music and acting, Carey also has released multiple fragrances throughout her career via a licensing contract with Elizabeth Arden. Here, the singer is pictured promoting her Forever perfume.

In 2012, Carey joined American Idol as a judge, taking over Jennifer Lopez’s spot. Carey and fellow judge and performer, Nicki Minaj, famously got into many on-screen spats during filming.

Carey released yet another studio album, titled Me. I Am Mariah...The Elusive Chanteuse, in 2014. Nas, Miguel, Wale, and Fabolous all made appearances on it.

The singer had her directorial debut in 2015 when she decided to direct (and star) in a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie titled A Christmas Melody.

After divorcing Cannon in 2014, the singer started a new relationship with Australian billionaire James Packer. The two were engaged for less than a year before calling it quits.

Eager to share more of her personality with fans, Carey filmed her E! network docu-series, Mariah’s World, in 2016. The program gave viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the singer's Sweet Sweet Fantasy tour and wedding planning process with Packer.

After knowing each other for over a decade, the “We Belong Together” singer started a new relationship with choreographer Bryan Tanaka. Here, the two are photographed performing during Carey’s Beacon Theatre residency in 2016.

Carey appeared on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve in 2016 but it wasn’t without technical issues. The singer struggled throughout her performance, later sharing that her in-ear monitors malfunctioned. No worries, though—Carey headlined the show again the following year and performed sans disruptions.

In 2017, Carey kept busy—she released a single with rapper YG, voiced a character in The Lego Batman Movie, made a cameo in Girls Trip, and kicked off a world tour with fellow vocalist Lionel Richie.

In 2018, Carey opened up about therapy, her mental health, and a bipolar II disorder diagnosis that she had kept private for nearly two decades. “For a long time, I thought I had a severe sleep disorder,” the singer told People magazine. “But it wasn’t normal insomnia, and I wasn’t lying awake counting sheep. I was working and working and working…I was irritable and in constant fear of letting people down. It turns out that I was experiencing a form of mania. Eventually, I would just hit a wall. I guess my depressive episodes were characterized by having very low energy. I would feel so lonely and sad—even guilty that I wasn’t doing what I needed to be doing for my career.”

In 2020, the singer released a memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, co-written by Michaela Angela Davis. Here, Carey talks with Andy Cohen about her New York Times best-selling book. Two years later, the performer joined forces with Davis again to create a holiday-themed children’s book, The Christmas Princess.

In 2022, Carey celebrated 25 years of Butterfly by releasing an anniversary edition and also decided to film a two-hour concert special that aired during the holiday season. And yes, she was sure to include “All I Want For Christmas Is You” in her setlist.