No Christmas is complete without All I Want For Christmas, and it’s safe to say Mariah Carey has become the queen of the festive season ever since the song was released in 1994.
All throughout the year the singer remains relatively quiet but come December 1, she defrosts and prepares herself to become the most talked-about person (after Santa) during the final month of the year.
The Christmas classic is pretty much unavoidable, playing in stores, movies and everyone’s home during the silly season, and we’re not complaining.
Despite the song coming out 27 years ago, it did take 25 years for it to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2019 when it finally reached the coveted milestone Mariah took to her Twitter account to celebrate, writing: We did it” along with emojis of a face crying tears of joy, a heart, a Christmas tree, and a blue butterfly.
The hugely successful song took 15 minutes to write, and wouldn’t have been released if it wasn’t for Mariah’s ex-husband and then manager Tommy Mottola, who forced her to make a Christmas album.
And luckily for her, it all worked out because Mariah and songwriter Walter Afanasieff earn $600,000 (AUD$843,520) in royalties per year and they have both accumulated a total of $60 million (AUD$84 million) to date.
The song is Mariah’s biggest international success, and the 12th best-selling single of all time, and the best-selling Christmas single by a female artist overall.
Since its debut, All I Want For Christmas has been featured in Love Actually and been covered by a number of artists including Ariana Grande, Kylie Minogue and Shania Twain. It is also the most searched for song during Christmas time in Australia.
So, to answer the question, how much money has Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas made? A lot.
