Mariah Carey is featured on the cover and in the pages of the new issue of Elle magazine wherein the pop diva talks about her career, her image and, for the first time in her own words, her marriage to Nick Cannon (who also appears in one of her photos for the magazine). She even talks about the possibility of children one day. Here are the pics of Mimi from the August issue of Elle and a portion of her revealing interview:

Sipping Gatorade Ice (is that dinner? Breakfast?) from a wineglass, Mariah reveals pages of her life as pure story book. Her first marriage, to Mottola, at age 23, might be observed as a Rapunzel tale of princess trapped in a tower (or, more precisely, an enormous $10 million mansion in Bedford, Connecticut). “When I was in an unhappy place in my life,” Carey says of her past, “I always wanted to be kidnapped. I just wanted a way out, but didn’t have one.” Ten years after her split with Mottola, handsome young prince Nick Cannon has come to the rescue. “He sort of kidnapped me and took me on a helicopter ride. Then he re-proposed.” Cannon’s first proposal had taken place on Carey’s roof in Manhattan a couple of evenings prior and involved the hiding of a 17-carat diamond ring inside a candy ring pop. “They’ve been calling me Cinderella since I first started out, so, of course, being Cinderella…” she says, laughing. “Most people would think, Okay, please! This doesn’t happen in real life.” The newlyweds met in 2005 at the Teen Choice Awards, where Cannon (then most famous for the film Drumline and The Nick Cannon Show on Nickelodeon) presented her an award. Only recently, however, did they officially get romantically involved. “We really kept the whole relationship aspect of it quiet,” Carey says. “Therefore, we didn’t really ‘date,’ you know what I mean? Because that would have been not quiet or private. I think we didn’t want to give people a chance to be like, ‘What are you doing? What are you talking about? This is so quick… are you sure?” The couple clandestinely both got their first tattoos before tying the knot – hers is a butterfly on the small of her back with “Mrs. Cannon” written down the center; his, a shoulder-spanning rendering of her name – to signify their love … Nick is someone, like her, who’s “motivated by faith,” she says. “We really do share a similar spiritual outlook on life… Even though people have their own fears about ‘Was I in a relationship before this, was I not in a relationship before this,’ to me, I wasn’t in a real relationship; it was more of a friendship and a working situation.” She talks about Nick wistfully (“He’s a great guy…”), but also warns me she’s cautious not to speak for him, fearing that anything she says will be misinterpreted by the ravenous media gossip machine. “It’s difficult, especially when legitimate press is saying, ‘They’re having a $4 million wedding,’ Why? What — did we set a budget?” She waxes sarcastic over the swirling rumors of a more formal and more costly future New York nuptial: “It’s gonna be $4 million! It’s going to be really cool! We’re going to give away gold as people leave! We’re going to sprinkle them with gold! It’s going to be very Coming to America! What do they think? Our whole point [in having the unannounced beach wedding] was to do the opposite!” She claps her hands and commands the boisterous J.J., who is currently running amok, to sit. He immediately snaps to attention and obeys. I’m impressed. Her striking authority over the dog leads me to inquire what kind of mother she thinks she might be, should she and Nick decide to have children. She stresses that it’s important to her that, despite her and Nick’s fame, her future kids live in “reality.” “You can get caught up in Hollywood-land or celebrity-land, and that’s maybe not the best thing for kids, ’cause they didn’t ask for it. Speaking for myself, I don’t know that I always felt safe and secure [as a child] — and that’s nobody’s fault; we’re not mudslinging or trying to slay anybody — but truly I really feel like it’s very important to be responsible and to think, Well, maybe if I do this it’s not the best thing for my child. You have to take a backseat a little bit, and as someone in the public eye, you’re not used to doing that.” How does she view Nick as a potential father? “I couldn’t imagine anybody that I’ve ever met being a better dad,” she says.

I love Mariah to death but there is no way in hell I could ever believe that her children are going to “live in reality”. She is a diva supreme and I would bet money that her children would be brought up with that same mentality. But that’s all beside the point … I am having a very hard time picturing Mariah Carey with a baby bump in the first place, so all this talk of children is a bit foreign for me. Even tho this is her first interview where she talks about her romance with Nick, we still don’t know that much more than we did before. I get that she wants to keep this part of her life private but the whole whirlwind romance is still so odd to me … there has to be more to the story. As usual, Mimi looks utterly fab in these photos … reminding me that Nick Cannon is one lucky-ass mofo.

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