Inside Mariah Carey's Mailbag

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In light of recent anthrax attacks, we can only imagine the kooky letters now being sent to celebrities. Frankly, we wouldn't blame Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts if they incinerated every piece of dopey fan mail sent to them.

Of course, there was a time when an envelope postmarked Trenton, N.J. and carrying no return address on its face would not cause alarm. Once, an autograph request was not considered a potential spore-bearing threat. We're recalling that innocent time with this collection of fan letters sent in the early 1990s to our favorite performer, Mariah Carey.

Last year, a TSG source and some of her coworkers found five boxes of old Mariah mail stacked at a Manhattan curb, apparently awaiting the sanitation truck. It is unknown why the nearly 2000 letters--sent to Carey care of Columbia Records and her management firm--were only then being discarded (the material clearly had been mailed and opened years earlier).

Most fans wrote Carey with praise for an album or congratulations about an award--or just sought an autographed picture. The correspondence contained a mixture of (sometimes creepy) mail from little kids, prisoners, soldiers stationed overseas, and lovelorn guys. For some reason, many fans included photographs of themselves, though Mariah apparently declined to press them into her scrapbook. We've included some of these discarded photos, including one of a months-old Texas belle whose parents wrote to report that they had named their lil' one after the singer.

As for why we've placed a red bar across the eyes of these fans, well, would you want anyone knowing you once wrote a gushy letter to Mariah Carey?

Photo Gallery #1 (1 page)

Photo Gallery #2 (1 page)

A "boner the size of Florida." (1 page)

"I'm here cause of coke..." (1 page)

Greetings from a Wall Street "rogue." (1 page)

Jailbird: "Bravo Mariah, Bravo." (1 page)

New York inmate's confused mood. (1 page)

Egad! The next Debbie Gibson? (1 page)

Very, very bothersome. (1 page)

Creative use of smiley faces. (1 page)

No, Edward, Thankkkk Youuuu. (1 page)