Mariah Carey explains why she only has 5 career Grammys: 'They scammed me'

The Grammys? They don't know her.

 Published on October 16, 2024 10:40PM EDT

Mariah Carey has 19 songs that have reached No. 1 — the most of any solo artist — and she's sold more records than God, who's big pretty much everywhere, yet the Recording Academy's appreciation has been rather elusive for the chanteuse.

On the latest episode of Las Culturistas, Carey sits down with hosts Bowen Yang and certified Lamb Matt Rogers, and Mimi spills the tea on the Grammy shade over the years.

Mariah Carey at the 2006 Grammys. SUSAN GOLDMAN/AFP via Getty Images)

"You don't have enough of those, by the way" Rogers says at the outset of the Grammy break-breakdown.

"They scaaaaammed me," Carey drawls. "They toy with me."

As usual, Mariah Carey's not wrong.

When she came on the scene in 1990, Carey was given the keys to the castle, nominated for five Grammys, including her first of three Album of the Year nominations, and she won two — Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for her debut single, "Vision of Love," and the all-important Best New Artist.

Then the rest of the '90s, despite 11 consecutive No. 1s, blockbuster sales, and indelible classics, Carey remained trophy-less. In 1996, she was nominated for six awards for the Fantasy album, and lost every single one. How, lambs and lamb-adjacents, did "Always Be My Baby" or "Fantasy" not snatch gold that night? And Album of the Year eluded her once again.

Yang and Rogers, mostly Rogers, then steer the conversation to Mariah's grand opus, 1997's Butterfly, which she agrees is "probably my best album," before adding, "It has zero accolades."

Indeed, it does. Butterfly was nominated for three Grammys, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song for all-time banger "Honey," and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the title track. That's it. Not an Album of the Year, not a Best R&B Album, nothing for "My All," "The Roof," "Breakdown." Where was the justice?

Then came 2006, and The Emancipation of Mimi. One would think the Recording Academy would emancipate some trophies for the comeback to end all comebacks, and they seemed poised to, with Mariah snagging eight nominations. She won three that night, but lost the big prizes: Record of the Year for "We Belong Together" to Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and Album of the Year to — checks notes — U2? They had an album out that year?

Since then, the Grammys have all but forgotten Mariah Carey exists, with her last nomination in 2009 for Best Gospel Performance. We do love Church Mariah.

But Yang and Rogers also astutely bring up that Carey didn't even get a Spoken Word nomination for her excellent audiobook to her excellent memoir, The Meaning of Mariah. Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter has three Spoken Word Grammys. In what world does Jimmy Carter — a great man, questionable singer, never wrote a hit — have half as many Grammys as Mariah Carey?

In the words of Bowen Yang, "Stop playing in this woman's face!"