Maria Carey is suing a former assistant over an alleged blackmail plot involving a secretly recorded sex tape. (Photo: Bang ShowBiz)
Mariah Carey was doing some “embarrassing things” in the bedroom. Little did she know her assistant was secretly recording her, leading to an alleged $8 million blackmail attempt. But Carey is fighting back.
The “Hero” singer is suing the former assistant, Lianna Azarian, for $3 million.
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Carey hired Azarian in March 2015 and fired her two years later. That’s when the assistant allegedly hatched the blackmail plot.
She claims in court papers that Lianna was secretly filming her “personal activities.” If the clips were made public, they could be extremely damaging to her, both personally and professionally.
The 48-year-old singer paid the employee up to $327,000 a year until she was fired, and claims the alleged blackmail started shortly afterwards, according to gossip site TMZ.
Azarian allegedly showed the videos to friends and claimed she would sell them if she was ever fired. Liana reportedly demanded the money and warned she’d release the videos and other damaging information once she was dismissed.
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The lawsuit doesn’t state what is on the videos, but describes the footage as “intimate.”
Besides recording her, Azarian also allegedly used her credit card to buy personal items and obtained discounts from retailers by claiming she was buying things for Carey.
When confronted, the assistant refused to hand over the videos and other evidence of criminal activity.
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She is suing for unspecified damages, but she wants more than $3 million, according to the gossip site.
The new lawsuit comes just weeks after Carey settled another legal dispute with her former manager Stella Bulochnikov, who took action against the singer last April, alleging she was owed millions of dollars.
An attorney confirmed recently: “The parties [have] reached a mutually agreed resolution to this matter.”
The attorney declined to say whether their client, who had sought unspecified damages, had received a cash settlement.
Stella agreed to “discontinue this action… with prejudice, with each party to bear its own attorney fees and costs,” according to the lawyer.
Stella had previously said she was suing for breach of contract, violation of the U.S. Civil Rights Act, and a violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act.
She claimed she was owed commissions on Carey’s earnings, which reportedly topped $100 million in three years.
Australian billionaire businessman James Packer dated Carey for 18 months before they called off their engagement in 2016.
The billionaire has spoken candidly about the failed relationship in the new biography “The Price Of Fortune: The Untold Story Of Being James Packer.”
The 51-year-old says he became “toxic” at the time of their split, according to an excerpt published by The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday.
Carey reportedly received a $50 million “inconvenience fee” after the breakup, the newspaper said.
Carey’s E! reality show, “Mariah’s World,” also put strain on the relationship. Packer reportedly became uncomfortable with the mounting publicity and the framing of himself as the rich boyfriend, according to London’s Daily Mail.
In the end, however, Pecker shouldered total responsibility for the breakup. They abruptly called it quits in Oct. 2016. Maria kept the engagement ring and later sold it.
The casino mogul, who entered rehab in March 2018, said he was struggling with his mental health during their relationship. He revealed in one interview that he was more than $5 billion in debt at the time he met Mariah.
“The relationship was always a sham—it was all about one thing…money, money, money, money,” a source to The New York Post’s Page Six.
Packer was reportedly unsettled by Carey’s lavish lifestyle. “James is very generous, but Mariah takes it to the next level,” a source told Australian Women’s Day magazine.
Of note, some reports said Carey refused to have sex with him until they were married. Which raises a question; what intimate things was she doing that would embarrass her?
After their breakup, the 48-year-old singer began dating her younger backing dancer, 35-year-old Bryan Tanaka.