Mariah Carey confirmed she recorded a secret song with Michael Jackson—but it may never see the light of day. Carey, 56, spoke out about the mysterious track during an Oct. 1 appearance on Watch What Happens Live after host Andy Cohen read a fan question that asked if a collaboration with Jackson was “in the vault somewhere.”
“It’s not in the vault. It’s right there,” Carey confirmed. “But there’s an issue with his estate because they’re doing something really huge for him, Michael.”
“And you know, this is a song that we didn’t know, it just would kind of ruin, not ruin, but it would sort of usurp the situation,” she added.
“I love it,” Carey said of the song, before admitting she had hoped it would be released on her album Here For It All. “I’m so upset that it’s not coming out on this album. Like it should be on. Every time I would play it for somebody, they’d be like, ‘Wow,'” she added.
Carey teased that the song is a new version of a track that fans are already familiar with.
“It’s one of his classics, and I sang along with it and did new background vocals,” she said. “I’m telling you, if someone just calls his management and tells them ‘we want to hear this,’” the Grammy winner added.
The two superstars worked together in the past. In 2001, Jackson asked Carey to participate in a charity single following the September 11 attacks. Jackson, Carey, and artists such as Beyoncé, Celine Dion, Luther Vandross, and Usher recorded a reworked version of the song ”What More Can I Give.”
Carey and Jackson also performed together onstage at Jackson’s 2001 United We Stand benefit concert.
After Jackson died in 2009 at age 50, Carey said she was “heartbroken.”
“Let us remember him for his unparalleled contribution to the world of music, his generosity of spirit in his quest to heal the world, and the joy he brought to his millions of devoted fans throughout the world,” she said in a statement, per Reuters. “I feel blessed to have performed with him several times and to call him my friend.”
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