Mariah Carey says she uses humor to help cope with feelings about ex-husband Tommy Mottola

Mariah Carey has a storied past that includes her marriage to Columbia Records exec Tommy Mottola. In the past she has discussed her feelings about their troubled marriage, and alleged he was controlling and emotionally abusive, among other things. In a new interview with Harper's Bazaar UK, she opened up about how she's dealt with her feelings from that relationship.

"Sometimes I feel angry about that time, but I think I’ve made peace with it – in any case, I vowed I’d stop talking about it," Carey says of the treatment she received. She noted that humor has been one of her coping mechanisms.

"Humour is my release, and people who know me know that. I’ll make little jokes about what happened because otherwise I could make every day a sob story," Mariah said. "It’s a coping mechanism, but it’s in my nature to laugh."

Tommy, who at the time was president of Columbia Records, came across Mariah's demo tape in 1988 and signed her to the label. They got married in 1993. Under his leadership, Mariah says he tried to fit her into a pop box despite her interest in exploring other genres.

"I wanted to do more R&B, more urban music, and any time I would bring that up, it would get shot down," she said. "It wasn’t that I didn’t like the music I was making – I just felt there was more inside me that I wanted to release."

Mariah would go on to tap into the hip-hop and R&B world with her 1997 album, Butterfly. She and Tommy separated and officially divorced in 1998.