Here’s How Mariah Carey’s ‘Glitter’ Album Saved Her Fan’s Life From 9/11 Attack

In 2005, Mariah Carey attributed Glitter’ s (the record and the movie) box office failure to 9/11. Even when Jay-Z ‘s The Blueprint album topped the charts around 9/11, Carey persisted in attributing her lack of success to the tragic occurrence. In her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey , she mentioned, “The saga of making Glitter was a collision of bad luck, bad timing, and sabotage.”

In a quite recent interview with The Messenger , a fan named Sara Botkin revealed how Carey “saved” her life on 9/11 when she chose to purchase her record Glitter instead of heading to her job at the World Trade Center’s South Tower that morning. She told the outlet, “I would probably tell [Mariah Carey], ‘You saved my life’.” She added, “I believe it was mostly good luck, and I think that album may have saved my life.” However, after the attack, she put the album on hold for a period. She added, “I wasn’t listening to [ Glitter ] very much. I was thinking no one would care about Mariah Carey or Britney Spears. Nothing matters anymore. It was very dark and sad. I was just glued to the television. I was down and depressed.” Botkin also said, “Shortly after 9/11, about a week later, I received a signed CD and a photo in the mail with a message that said, ‘God bless.’ That meant a lot to me. I remember thinking about how everyone was calling and emailing me. I love her self-titled album. I thought Glitter was great. I know it was not popular. It was a throwback to the 80s.”

Glitter, the 2001 film that was meant to make Mariah Carey a movie star, is regarded as one of the most infamous box office failures ever. Several articles at the time of the film’s premiere said that the scene that made people cheer was the one showing the Twin Towers in their entirety. These buildings were destroyed just ten days before Glitter hit the screens. It was initially scheduled for release on August 21 (the film was scheduled for August 31). Still, both dates had been moved back three weeks due to Carey’s hospital admission after her highly publicized struggle with tiredness during the project’s promotion.

In Carey’s memory, Glitter’s timing was more important than its substance. In 2005, when promoting her comeback album, The Emancipation of Mimi , she told the New York Times , “I don’t care if it was the best one of my life, anything released the week of 9/11/2001 was not going to work.” To show the world that Mariah’s admirers, called ‘Lambily,’ have recognized for too long how brilliant Glitter is, they launched the #JusticeForGlitter campaign. The record eventually hit the milestone in the wee hours and ascended to the US iTunes rankings in the year 2018 thanks to the social media effort.