Mariah Carey hasn’t spoken to ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ co-writer Walter Afanasieff for "20 years".
The 60-year-old Grammy Award winning songwriter worked with Mariah for several years with their relationship beginning back in 1990 with him co-writing and co-producing 1993 hit ‘Hero’ and jointly penning ‘One Sweet Day’ with Mariah which was a number one for her and Boyz II Men, as well as the festive classic.
Despite the incredible music they created together, Walter now has no relationship with Mariah.
Speaking to RadioTimes.com, Walter said: "We had a falling out. I would have hoped that in 20 years, she would have knocked on my door – but she hasn’t, so…"
The producer claims that the pair stopped talking when she got divorced in 1998 from her first husband Tommy Mottola, who was the head of Sony Music Entertainment whom he was contracted to.
Walter added: "The reason we stopped working together was primarily because she and her husband, who was the chairman of Sony Music, got a divorce. And I was under an exclusive contract with him. So, she left the building, she wasn’t even on the label anymore, but I couldn’t go and work with her because he wouldn’t let me. So she found that to be a little bit of a slap in the face.
"Singers like Mariah, Celine [Dion], Whitney [Houston], Barbra [Streisand] they’re all very insecure creatures. If you start working on a song with another singer, the jealousy comes out. They’re very, very jealous people. I was working to put food on my table. I can’t only work with Mariah, I have to work with other people, and I think that was a bit of a problem ’cause I was working, at that time, with Celine, and there was a girl named Lara Fabian, too. So, I don’t know, we just parted ways."
Walter – who won the 1999 Record of the Year Grammy Award for producing ‘My Heart Will Go On’ which was recorded by Celine for the ‘Titanic’ film – has also claimed that ‘GTFO’ hitmaker "doesn’t like to acknowledge other people" have aided her success which is another reason the pair don’t talk anymore.
He said: "She doesn’t like to acknowledge other people. It seems to be a problem with singers. If you see a singer talking about something that they wrote, they will probably say I wrote the song when I was 12 years old, or, here’s another song I wrote. It doesn’t matter how many interviews she’s done or when she’s on stage, she’ll never ever say, ‘Here’s the song that I wrote with Walter.’ "
Mariah Carey no longer speaks to All I Want For Christmas co-writer
