Mariah Carey Recalls 'Extremely Uncomfortable' Ellen Interview

It's been a rough year for Ellen DeGeneres. In January the longtime comedienne and talk show host was the recipient of the Carol Burnett Award. For that honor, fellow comedienne Kate McKinnon gave DeGeneres an emotional tribute at the Golden Globes. By April that had changed and a petition had taken off, positing that DeGeneres should be replaced with Ellen Page as host. It seemed partially serious but partially in jest. But in the months to follow there has been a reckoning of sorts for DeGeneres as well as the workplace culture of The Ellen Show. Now, Mariah Carey is speaking out on a 2008 interview that was recently resurfaced as a part of that process.

"I was extremely uncomfortable with that moment is all I can say," Carey told New York Magazine in a new cover story. "And I really have had a hard time grappling with the aftermath."

At the time of the interview, there was widespread speculation that Carey might be pregnant. Carey repeatedly avoided answering questions -- as is her right -- about a possible pregnancy, but when she appeared on The Ellen Show, DeGeneres put her feet to the fire. In the clip, the host first asks about the pregnancy and when Carey responds that she doesn't want to discuss it, DeGeneres challenged her to drink Champagne. The tense moment of Carey realizing what was happening at the time was read by the audience as funny.

"I wasn't ready to tell anyone because I had had a miscarriage," Carey told New York Magazine of why she had decided to keep the information personal. "I don't want to throw anyone that's already being thrown under any proverbial bus, But I didn't enjoy that moment." That pregnancy also ended in a miscarriage weeks later.

In the new interview, she explained that there is "an empathy that can be applied to those moments that I would have liked to have been impemented."

In response to all of the recent criticisms and the ongoing reckoning of the workplace environment that was fostered on set at The Ellen Show, DeGeneres recently released a statement. "As we've grown exponentially, I've not been able to stay on top of everything and relied on others to do their jobs as they knew I'd want them done," she wrote. "Clearly some didn't. That will now change and I'm committed to ensuring this does not happen again." She has not since addressed the Carey incident.