Mariah Carey Says She Came Up With "All I Want For Christmas Is You" When She Was Just A Little Kid—But What’s The Truth?

"All I Want for Christmas Is You" has been playing every year (since its release back in 1994) all over the world. The song has become a holiday classic, joining the oldies on the radio like Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song." Last year in 2021, Mariah Carey's tune garnered over one billion streams on Spotify, beating other competitors by a huge margin. But how exactly did this hit song come into existence?

Mariah Claims She Wrote It When She Was Little

You may be surprised to hear this, but Carey actually told Billboard years ago that she "basically" came up with "All I Want for Christmas Is You" on her little Casio keyboard! "I am proud of this song that I wrote basically as a kid on my little Casio keyboard," she said. And, on Cosmopolitan, she added: "I just sat down, decorated a little tree and put on ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and tried to get into that mood. Then I sat in this small room with a keyboard and started doing little melodies and stuff.” Wow! Was Carey a child prodigy? When it comes to her vocals, absolutely! As for instruments... perhaps not.

According to some reports, Mariah Carey received piano lessons as a child, and even bought Marilyn Monroe's (who Carey feels connected to on a deep level) piano for $662,500 – which she's never touched. “That was the only thing that she [Marilyn Monroe] had from her childhood. I haven't touched it – I won't even tune it,” she said in 2016.

Carey, who admired Monroe, actually has a good reason for the expensive purchase: to "rescue" the instrument, rather than play it. "That piano was her mom's," Mariah explained. "In her biography there's a whole story about how Marilyn spent years trying to find it and get it back. Now I'm gonna take good care of it." However, she added that "it will end up in a museum." Maybe instead of “rescuing” the piano, the singer should’ve gone for the presidential dress Kim Kardashian wore at the Met Gala. "I could've bought the dress, the 'Mr. President' dress,” Carey told Complex. “But I'd rather maintain what she cared about.”

In Marc Shapiro's Mariah Carey, the author claimed that the young singer only tried "her hand at the piano, but the lessons required a degree of concentration and structure" that she "wasn't ready" for. Even the pop star herself admitted to only “playing a little bit” of piano. “I’m not a piano player – I can play a little bit – but I really like to help mold whoever’s playing,” Carey told Complex. So, did Carey really come up with the Christmas jingle when she was a kid? Apparently, she didn't.

Who Is Walter Afanasieff?

Walter Afanasieff is a multi-Grammy Award winning producer, composer, and songwriter. He was Carey's writer for over four years, and he and the pop star wrote and recorded "All I Want for Christmas Is You" in 1994. Let's break this down real quick: One of the biggest songs on the planet is produced by two people – yet, Carey is taking all of the glory for it. Not only that, but Carey's fans have started to attack Afanasieff for trying to claim partial credit, which he undeniably deserves. "Mariah has been very wonderful, positive and a force of nature. She’s the one that made the song a hit and she’s awesome," Afanasieff told Variety. He continues, "But she definitely does not share credit where credit is due. As a result, it has really hurt my reputation, and as a result, has left me with a bittersweet taste in my mouth. Because here it is, such a wonderful, huge event for me, yet my life is being threatened on the Internet, because Mariah fans are accusing me of stealing from her."

The composer added that he and Carey have written "a hundred songs together." "So to deny my songwriting partnership with her on this one song doesn't really make sense," Afanasieff explains, "All the songs we write are all 50/50, partnership songs. In fact, if you ask Mariah Carey, ‘Who did you write ‘Hero’ with?’ or ‘Who did you write ‘One Sweet Day’ with?’, she’ll go, 'Oh, well, I wrote that with Walter Afanasieff.'" But for some reason, the star won't mention Afanasieff's name when it comes to "All I Want for Christmas Is You." He states: "On this one particular song, for some reason, she’s decided to wrap her arms around this in such a way: like she almost does not want to admit [a co-writer]." 

Unfortunately, Carey's decision to discredit Afanasieff has begun to hurt the musician. When the song took the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 (25 years), the songwriter was eager to see congratulatory messages from friends and family. Instead, he received an onslaught of hate from Carey's fans. "And my wife posted something on Instagram and, oh boy, it’s like hundreds of just haters," Afanasieff recalls. "And it makes me realize: is this something that legally hurts my character, my professional name and my professional integrity as a producer and songwriter, that over two decades I’m being branded a liar and a cheat and a charlatan?"

Even though Mariah fails to acknowledge her co-writer when it comes to the Christmas bop, she and Afanasieff still have equal shares on the song. "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’," the Grammy-winning producer told Radio Times in 2018. "She's made it her modus operandi [to neglect to mention his name when discussing the song]. We wrote the song together, my name is 50%, her name is 50%, we have equal shares."

Mariah Carey Gets Humbled

So there you have it. Mariah may not be telling the truth about her song, but she doesn’t care – besides, the diva has other things to worry about. Carey filed an application to trademark "Queen of Christmas" in 2021, but was denied by the US Patent and Trademark Office. She also failed to trademark the abbreviated version – "QOC" – as well as the title "Princess Christmas." In fact, Carey lost her crown to the Christmas recording artist Elizabeth Chan in the trademark battle just this month.

On July 2022, Chan's attorney, Louis W. Tompros, hit back with a formal declaration of opposition against Carey's attempt to take QOC, and the court actually sided with her. "As an independent artist and small business owner, my life's work is to bring people together for the holiday season, which is how I came to be called the Queen of Christmas," Chan said in a press statement. "I wear that title as a badge of honor and with full knowledge that it will be – and should be – bestowed on others in the future."

The new QOC added this sweet conclusion: "My goal in taking on this fight was to stand up to trademark bullying not just to protect myself, but also to protect future Queens of Christmas."

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