Mariah Carey has had a successful career. Unfortunately, her 2001 film, Glitter didn't rub off on that luck. Twenty years later, it had Reddit fans debating why it failed while Lady Gaga's A Star Is Born was a hit.
"Why is Glitter considered bad but A Star is Born got acclaimed?" asked the poster. "They're almost the same plot; a young woman becomes a pop star." One replied: "Glitter is a bad film. Mariah is great in it but sadly it was stuck with a cheesy 'old school' director and story."
True enough, production faced a lot of script issues while making the movie. Someone acknowledged it on the Reddit thread, saying: "I wish they had kept the original script for Glitter. I wonder if it would've done a lot better."
Another one explained: "There is a lot of plot point that doesn't really make sense a lot of sense (the whole mother storyline, the central bonkers love story and the abrupt ending), the effects and direction are also downright awful. Acting is ok though, clearly a better material would lift it."
But according to the proud diva herself, the issue was merely the timing of Glitter's release. Here's everything she's said about the project — from how it "almost ruined" her life to how it turned into a cult classic, two decades later.
Mariah Carey Blames 9/11 Over Glitter's Failure
Both the Glitter album and movie were set to be released in August 2001. However, it was postponed due to Carey's "extreme exhaustion," which landed her in the hospital while promoting the film. In 2005, the year she released her comeback album The Emancipation of Mimi, the Hero songstress said of the flop: "I released it around 9/11. I became a punching bag."
According to Jezebel, it wasn't the real reason for the failure as "other new album releases on that day included Jay-Z's classic album The Blueprint and Nickelback's ...less-than-classic album Silver Side Up. (They were certified two and six times platinum, respectively.)"
But for the record, the "punching bag" part was true. SNL's post-9/11 episode featured a dig on the movie: "US officials continue the search for Osama Bin Ladin. Reports suggest that Bin Ladin is most likely somewhere remote and barren, where he will not encounter others. The FBI has begun searching theaters showing the movie Glitter."
In 2009, the Queen of Christmas went on to claim that "It was after September 11th. A lot of people taking shots at me had no place to go. We are friggin' ADD, this country. There's a huge ADD situation." In her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the musician reiterated: "The saga of making Glitter was a collision of bad luck, bad timing, and sabotage."
Why Recording Glitter's Soundtrack 'Almost Ruined' Mariah Carey's Life
In 2018, Carey opened up about her health issues in 2001, saying that she was actually diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder after being hospitalized that year. "Until recently I lived in denial and isolation and in constant fear someone would expose me," she said of keeping it a secret for a while.
"It was too heavy a burden to carry and I simply couldn’t do that anymore," she continued. I sought and received treatment, I put positive people around me and I got back to doing what I love -- writing songs and making music."
She also confessed that being reminded of that period that "almost ruined" her life is the reason she "never [performs] those songs" from the album. Carey recalled that she "didn't want to believe" her diagnosis at first but after her then-recent "hardest couple of years," she decided to seek treatment and take medications that "seems to be pretty good" and is not making her "feel too tired or sluggish."
The Obsessed hitmaker assured her fans that she's "in a really good place right now, where I'm comfortable discussing my struggles with bipolar II disorder. She's even "hopeful we can get to a place where the stigma is lifted from people going through anything alone. It can be incredibly isolating. It does not have to define you and I refuse to allow it to define me or control me."
How Mariah Carey's Glitter Went From Flop To Cult Classic
Carey's fans, the Lambs or Lambily started a social media campaign called #JusticeForGlitter in 2018. The music flick shortly became a cult classic since then. When asked about it back then, the five-time Grammy winner said: "That's the Lambs, that's the Lambily, those are my fans -- they had this movement, it was called hashtag Justice for Glitter."
The former American Idol judge also announced that her fans "got it to No. 1." She thanked them, saying: "This is all about them. And I should not have to feel bad about that because it was all about the circumstances when the album came out, so it's exciting." The reviews also changed since then, with critics calling the movie "brilliant," "undeniably ahead of its time," and "the perfect '80s tribute."
