Mariah Carey is set to headline the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony. As one of the most popular superstars on the globe, many fans might be wondering whether she has Italian roots.
“Mariah Carey fully represents the emotional atmosphere that accompanies the run-up to the Games,” the Olympic committee said to explain its decision to include Carey in the lineup, which includes other musicians like Andrea Bocelli and Karol G. “Music is a universal language that attracts different stories and sensibilities, and intertwines with the opening ceremony’s theme of harmony.”
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Carey later invited fans in fluent Italian to watch her performance on Feb. 6 at Milan’s San Siro Stadium. Italian media noted that she will be singing “he’s preparing to sing “Volare,” an Italian song by Domenico Modugno.
While we don’t know whether Mariah Carey is fluent in Italian, we know that she knows the basics. In fact, she grew up around the language, thanks to her mom’s occupation in opera.
“My mom was an opera singer, so she was always practicing singing in German, Italian, all kinds of languages,” Carey recalled on Live! With Kelly and Mark. “One time, she was rehearsing and made a mistake. She stopped, and I just continued the line she was singing. I was about four years old. That’s when she said, ‘Okay, I guess she’s got an ear!'”
In an interview with Afios (via the Mariah Carey Archives), the “We Belong Together” singer also revealed that her brother has a deep tie to the country. “The first time he went to Italy, he felt like he had always belonged there. We are not Italian, so I don’t know where we get that feeling, but Capri is special for me. I love to walk every day surrounded by nature and without smog.”
Mariah Carey is not Italian. Her mother is of Irish descent, while her father is of African American and Afro-Venezuelan descent.
Carey has been open about her upbringing and her ethnicity in interviews and appearances. “I grew up thinking hair was supposed to look a certain way,” Carey told the The Sunday Times. “As a mixed-race person with a Black father growing up in predominantly white neighborhoods, it was difficult. My Black friends were able to do different types of treatments on their hair from the ones who were mixed. My white friends didn’t have to do anything — they just woke up and their hair was fabulous.”
She also discussed the topic with Meghan Markle, who also has Black roots, on her podcast Archetypes. “That’s an interesting thing: a ‘mixed woman,'” Carey said. “I always thought it should be OK to say ‘I’m mixed.’ It should be OK to say that but people want you to choose.”
“My father’s father’s mother was Venezuelan,” she continued. “But my father’s family is Black so everybody was like, ‘Her father is Venezuelan and Black’ because they didn’t know how to put me in that box. They want you to put you in a box and categorize you.”
