With her personal problems under control, a singing career back on track and a new look, Mariah Carey welcomed 2007 with open arms.

And in March of that year she also welcomed the invitation from Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner to appear on the cover of, and in the pictorial of, his men’s magazine as a Playboy Bunnygirl.

Although Mariah had carved out a fairly sexy persona in the world of music, she would not accept the offer to pose completely naked and agreed to the honour of being a Bunnygirl as long as she retained her modesty! With the aptly named ‘Sex & Music’ issue of March 2007 Mariah came clean about several issues that until then had remained only media speculation.

In the March issue of Playboy, the 37-year-old singer spoke openly about her breakdown in 2001 when she commented, “What happened was that people made a big deal of when my old publicist pulled the microphone out of my hand because I was venting about Howard Stern. Howard Stern had said a lot of mean stuff about me that morning, as he does about everybody every morning, and I think it really got to me. So I gained five pounds. It’s not the end of the freakin’ world. But I was exhausted, and I did collapse later. Then everybody blew it out of proportion.

When asked about her appearance as a mentor on American Idol Carey revealed, ‘I know everybody thinks I’m the poster child for American Idol, but I was really shy when I first came out as a performer….Randy Jackson of American Idol has worked with me since my first record. I’ve known him for so long, and now he’s a huge star. It’s just weird to me. We’ll get mobbed walking down the street. You know how the band is introduced at a show? My little joke used to be that he was Michael Jackson’s brother, and the crowd would believe me and go crazy.

On her concept album Glitter which never really showed Mariah at her best, she stated, ‘I try to avoid it. Actually, I don’t mind it. There are moments that make me laugh, and I don’t care…. Glitter was such a bomb, but no one ever pointed out that it came out around September 11, 2001′.