When someone mentions Mariah Carey what springs to mind? Killer pipes? Fabulously lacklustre dance moves? An unrelenting erotic aesthetic that makes you happy to be alive?

Well, all these things may be true, and some. But she is also a woman with as many hang-ups as the rest of us.

The 47 year-old singer, mum, mogul and movie star opened up to Page Six at her Madison Square Garden performance on Saturday.

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Mariah Carey

Despite all of the hyper-glam trappings of success that surround the notoriously over-the-top singer, she can't help but feel like many of us do underneath it all.

She explained,

'I just feel like I am a regular human being and I deserve the same respect as anybody else. I have always had low self-esteem, and people do not recognise that.'

The oft-referred to 'diva' said that she struggles perceiving the truth of things around her, including how much respect she deserves.

'I can't measure what type of respect I deserve — I really can't.'

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She also struggles to suss out wether the people around her are genuine or not:

I do think to myself, 'Did they mean this? Or do they not really mean it?' And that is with everybody — it is not just with three people or just one.

But, as well as unbridled fame, Carey mentios her upbringing as another source of this insecurity. She explained:

Growing up different, being biracial, having the whole thing where I did not know if I fit in . . . That is why music became such a big part of my life, because it helped me overcome those issues. Sometimes it is hard to let your guard down.

Sometimes it's easy to forget that these stars are human, however fabulous and worldly their lives might appear.

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Daisy Murray
Digital Fashion Editor

Daisy Murray is the Digital Fashion Editor at ELLE UK, spotlighting emerging designers, sustainable shopping, and celebrity style. Since joining in 2016 as an editorial intern, Daisy has run the gamut of fashion journalism - interviewing Molly Goddard backstage at London Fashion Week, investigating the power of androgynous dressing and celebrating the joys of vintage shopping.