Mariah Carey on Rock & Roll Hall of Fame snub: “My lawyer got in before me”
Mariah Carey has spoken out about being snubbed by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – see what she had to say below.
Since her emergence in the music industry in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Mariah Carey has gone on to release numerous albums, breaking a collection of records and scoring multiple Number One hits. However, the ‘We Belong Together’ singer has time and again been passed up for a coveted spot in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Carey – who has been eligible for induction since 2016 – was nominated for the first time earlier this year, but ultimately did not secure her spot in the class of 2024 which included Cher, Ozzy Osbourne and more.
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times recently, Carey was asked about the nomination. She candidly replied: “My thoughts are, I didn’t get in. Everybody was calling me, going, ‘I think you’re getting in!’ and so I was excited about it. But then it didn’t happen. My lawyer got into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame before me.”
Her lawyer, Allen Grubman – a co-founder of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – was inducted in 2022. Grubman has long been a lawyer to the stars, representing several big names in the entertainment industry including Bruce Springsteen, U2, Sting, Madonna, Elton John and Lady Gaga among others.
While Grubman’s role as a lawyer has been instrumental in “negotiating ground-breaking long-term agreements for his clients that allow them to maintain creative control of their work” per the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, his induction into the Rock Hall wasn’t a decision that went over well with some of his peers.
In 2022, Rock Hall and Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner revealed that he wasn’t fond of Grubman’s induction, saying the lawyer had “made no contribution of any kind, by any definition, to the creative development or the history of rock & roll. He has been chosen because of his clout as entertainment super lawyer. This decision is about money and bending to the ego of a music business power broker.”
Wenner expanded, per Billboard:“After I resigned, I was told that music business power-brokers on the board were going to be inducted. These individuals had made not one iota of difference to the history, present or future of the creation of music, which was the explicit criterion. But they had accumulated influence and wealth. It was an inside job.”
Wenner himself was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 for his contributions to music journalism and removed from the Rock Hall board in 2023 after a controversial interview where he said female and black artists aren’t “intellectual enough” to be interviewed for his book, The Masters.
Mariah Carey isn’t the only musician who has consistently been snubbed for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Cher – who was finally inducted last month – in 2023 spoke about her absence from the Rock Hall despite becoming eligible for induction in 1990: “They can just you-know-what themselves.”
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Surej Singh
NME
