Nearly four decades into Mariah Carey’s still-vital career, three goals have remained constant for her: to love, heal and uplift.
“I’ve always tried to incorporate messages into my songs like ‘Make It Happen’ and ‘Hero,’ ” says Carey, 56, on a day off from her recent December holiday residency at Las Vegas’ Park MGM. “It’s just an interesting thing to be able to give back in that way. I didn’t grow up with money. And if you grew up like me, it means even more to be able to give back.”
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Carey’s long-established commitment to giving back, as well as her prodigious career, will get the spotlight on Jan. 30 when the five-time Grammy Award winner is honored as the 2026 MusiCares Person of the Year. She will join an illustrious circle of prior honorees that includes the Grateful Dead, Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson, Joni Mitchell, Gloria Estefan, Billy Joel and Dolly Parton.
“Mariah Carey’s influence extends far beyond her remarkable artistry,” MusiCares executive director Theresa Wolters said upon the announcement of Carey as Person of the Year. “She has used her platform consistently to provide tangible support to communities, whether through disaster relief, youth empowerment or programs that help those facing barriers to opportunity. Her work exemplifies the values at the heart of MusiCares: creating systems of care that lift people up and ensure music professionals and communities can thrive.”
Over the years, Carey has supported various disaster relief efforts, including for victims of Hurricane Katrina and the COVID-19 pandemic, and has championed other causes like HIV/AIDS, education, human rights and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. But Camp Mariah, the youth initiative she co-founded with the Fresh Air Fund — headed today by CEO Lisa Gitelson — was her first charitable project and is still at the heart of all of her philanthropic endeavors.
In December 1994, Carey, a member of the Fresh Air board, performed a holiday concert at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in Manhattan — and debuted her now-classic holiday song, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” The event raised more than $700,000 to benefit her eponymous annual camp in New York’s Mid-Hudson Valley, which launched the following summer, and was further bolstered by a $1 million donation by Carey herself. (Camp Mariah is just one aspect of the work done by Fresh Air, a nonprofit founded in 1877 to provide outdoor experiences for New York children from underserved communities.) The summer component of Fresh Air’s multiyear Career Awareness Program (CAP), Camp Mariah’s free, three-week experience for children between ages 12 and 15 features traditional activities like sports, swimming and hiking complemented by introductions to career tracks ranging from film and photography to robotics and culinary arts, and a careers class that provides help with résumés and cover letters.
“It’s such a big thing for me because most of these kids have never been outside their own blocks,” Carey says of her camp, which was also the setting for her 1996 “Always Be My Baby” music video. “That’s why we keep doing it every year. I go up there and talk to the kids so they can learn about the different things they can do in life.”
Most recently, Carey partnered with LGBTQ+ advocacy organization GLAAD in early December to auction off her hot pink, rhinestone-studded “Protect the Dolls” jacket — which she wore during an August performance at Brighton, England’s Pride in the Park festival — to support the trans community (it ultimately sold for $5,500).
“All of us should do what we can to give back something,” Carey adds. “And it’s also important to do more than that. I get caught up with my schedule sometimes, so it’s not as much as it should be. But it’s still an important part of my life.”
As is the prolific, record-setting career that in turn has helped foster Carey’s philanthropy — and has also made her a powerful business force in the music industry. Carey became a superstar in 1990 with her self-titled debut album, which featured four No. 1 singles, including “Vision of Love” and “Someday.” Since then, she has amassed 19 No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100, among them “Hero,” “One Sweet Day” and “We Belong Together.” Her 16th studio album, Here for It All, arrived in September, and became her 19th top 10 entry on the Billboard 200. The album — her first since 2018’s Caution — simultaneously landed atop four other charts as well: Top Album Sales, Top Current Album Sales, Top R&B Albums and Independent Albums. After spending the majority of her career on major labels, Carey released Here for It All independently through gamma. and her Mariah imprint.
Alongside her MusiCares recognition — and not to mention her five career Grammys, including a 1991 win for best new artist — Carey continues to receive industry accolades. In 2025, those included the MTV Video Music Awards’ Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, the BET Awards’ Ultimate Icon Award and iHeartRadio Music Awards’ Icon Award. And she capped the year by adding another record-breaking achievement to her already long list of accomplishments. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” scored its 20th week at No. 1 on the Hot 100, surpassing the 19-week runs of Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Old Town Road” and Shaboozey’s “Tipsy (A Bar Song),” in 2019 and 2024, respectively. Prior to “Old Town Road” and “Tipsy,” Carey had held the record for more than two decades with “One Sweet Day,” her 1995 smash featuring Boyz II Men that spent 16 weeks atop the chart. (Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Justin Bieber’s “Despacito” tied that mark in 2017.) Asked about the strategy behind how she’s continued to level up while sustaining such an influential career, Carey credits a team that includes manager Michael Richardson and Rob Light, her agent and CAA partner/managing director.
“I’ve always worked really hard,” Carey says, “because I knew [from the start] that I wanted to be here for a long time. The one lesson I’ve learned is to just be true to yourself. And I was fortunate enough to be able to do that. There were some things along the way that weren’t ideal, you know, but here I am.”
And she’s preparing to level up again: Along with Andrea Bocelli, she will headline the opening ceremony for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Feb. 6, her first major appearance on that global stage.
With the Park MGM holiday residency — which grossed $8 million over 10 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore — now behind her, Carey says she’s “thinking about doing residencies in different countries in Europe.” Also on tap for her 2026: continuing work on a documentary she’s making with Sony Pictures and a long-teased biopic adaptation of her 2020 best-selling memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, with producer-director Lee Daniels at the helm (the pair previously worked together on Daniels’ films Precious and The Butler).
As Carey’s holiday residency wound down, global music platform Wax Poetics announced its auction of an ultra-rare, original 1988 demo tape by the singer-songwriter-producer had fetched a winning bid of $54,050. It underscores Carey’s legendary status — even if she scoffs at that notion.
“Everybody has their own little meanings for what things they say,” she says. “But I don’t call myself a legend. I’m just still working, still trying hard.”
This story appears in the Jan. 24, 2026, issue of Billboard.