The crown of the Queen of Shade has returned to its rightful heir: Mariah Carey. The diva — who’s always back in the spotlight around the holidays — first ascended to the throne in the early aughts after she dropped a now infamous, “I don’t know her” when asked her opinion about J. Lo. During an appearance on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live last night, she resurrected the phrase in reference to two separate modern pop stars, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato.
Carey dropped one bit of verbal cloud coverage during a segment called “Plead the Fifth”. Host Andy Cohen asked about her thoughts on an Instagram post Lovato made back in June where she defended Grande against unfavorable comparisons to Carey. “The woman is mean for no reason.” Lovato said of Carey at the time. “Extremely talented? Yes. Superhuman? Possibly. Unnecessarily rude? Absolutely.”
“I don’t know her either and so I wouldn’t say anything to her,” Carey fired back. “She should come up, introduce herself to me, say, ‘Here’s my opinion. What do you think about it?’ That’s how you handle shit, OK?”
Elsewhere, in a segment actually dubbed “Does! She! Know! Her?!”, Cohen asked if she knew Grande herself. Carey responded with a flat, “No,” and added, “I don’t know. I really don’t. Honestly, I’m not familiar. I listen to hip-hop more than I listen to pop music.” Apparently she missed out on that massive rap/pop crossover hit “Side to Side” Grande put out with Carey’s most prominent modern rival, Nicki Minaj.
Now, part of this seems to be the sort of inverse to, “You don’t know me!” But the other half of it, based on how Carey responded to questions about the likes of Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, is that if you aren’t a Madonna-level icon or someone she’s physically met in person (likely at one of her own shows), Carey honestly does not know who you are. If she hasn’t shaken your hand, you’re simply not on her radar. Then again, she actually sang with Miley Cyrus and still claimed not to remember meeting her, so maybe she’s just gotten really good at the subtle shade game.
Find the Lovato comments above and watch the full “Does! She! Know! Her?!” bit below.
