Loverboy (Mariah Carey Song) - Background and Release

Background and Release

Following the release of "Loverboy", Carey embarked on a short promotional campaign for the song. On July 19, 2001, Carey made a surprise appearance on the MTV program Total Request Live (TRL). As the show's host Carson Daly began taping following a commercial break, Carey came out onto the filming stage, pushing an ice cream cart while wearing a large men's shirt. Seemingly anxious and exhilarated, Carey began giving out individual bars of ice cream to fans and guests on the program, while waving to the crowd down below on Times Square, while diverging into a rambling monologue regarding therapy. Carey then walked to Daly's platform and began a striptease, in which she shed her shirt to reveal a tight yellow and green ensemble, leading him to exclaim "Mariah Carey has lost her mind!". While she later revealed that Daly was aware of her presence in the building prior to her appearance, she admitted that he was meant to act surprised in order to provide a more dramatic effect for the program. Carey's appearance on TRL garnered strong media attention, with many critics and newspapers citing her behavior as "troubled" and "erratic". In the days following her appearance on TRL, Carey had began displaying "erratic behavior" during a public record singing for the single at Tower Records in New York. As the appearance was filmed, she began rambling on several points, leading her to discuss radio-host Howard Stern, and how his form of humor on his program bothered her greatly. At that point, Carey's publicist Cindi Berger grabbed the microphone from her hand, and ordered the cameras to stop filming. Only days later, Carey began posting irregular voice notes and messages on her official website:

I'm trying to understand things in life right now and so I really don't feel that I should be doing music right now. What I'd like to do is just a take a little break or at least get one night of sleep without someone popping up about a video. All I really want is just be me and that's what I should have done in the first place ... I don't say this much but guess what, I don't take care of myself.

After the quick removal of the messages, Berger commented that Carey had been "obviously exhausted and not thinking clearly" when she posted the letters. Two days later on July 26, she was suddenly hospitalized, citing "extreme exhaustion" and a "physical and emotional breakdown". Following the heavy media coverage surrounding Carey's publicized breakdown and hospitalization, Virgin Records and 20th Century Fox delayed the release of both Glitter, as well as its soundtrack of the same name. The announcement was made on August 9, 2001, that both the film and accompanying soundtrack would be postponed three weeks, from August 21 to September 11, and from August 31 to September 21. Following Carey's absence from the public eye, as well as her abandonment of promotional appearances for the film and soundtrack, her unprecedented $100 million five-album record deal with Virgin Records (EMI Records) was bought out for $50 million. The decision was brought out due to the low sales of the project, as well as the negative publicity surrounding her breakdown. Soon after, Carey flew to Capri, Italy for a period of five months, in which she began writing material for her new album, stemming from all the personal experiences she had endured throughout the past year. Additionally, she founded her own label modeled after her initials, MonarC Entertainment, and signed a new three-album record deal with Island Records, valued at over $23 million.