Mariah Carey Recalls Racist Attack

While promoting her role in the new film "The Butler," pop star Mariah Carey has opened up further about the difficulties she experienced growing up as a biracial child on Long Island, NY.

It was during a press conference for the film that the "#Beautiful" singer revealed an incident that has stayed with her throughout her life: She was spat on by a white person as a child while riding the school bus.

As first reported by Yahoo! Movies, Carey, 43, whose father is of Venezuelan and African-American decent while her mother is Irish, was a victim of a racially charged attack reminiscent of a scene from the film, which also stars Oprah Winfrey and Forrest Whitaker.

"That actually happened to me," Carey said of the scene in "The Butler" meant to recreate the Woolworth's Lunch Counter sit-in—where a black college student gets spat on by a white woman.

"I know people would be in shock and not really want to believe or accept that, but it did. That right there, that was almost the deepest thing to me in the movie because I know what she went through—and it happened to be a bus as well. It was a school bus, in the face and in the same way."

In the film Carey portrays the mother of the titular character played by Whitaker.

This is not the first time Carey has opened up about her struggles to fit in as a biracial child. During an interview with Oprah in 2012 Carey recalled a time in kindergarten when she was asked to draw a picture of her family.

"So I was drawing everybody and I got to my father and I started to make him brown," she said at the time. "Kindergarten teachers are often young, and the two women were standing behind me giggling. And I turned around, self-conscious, and asked, 'Why are you laughing?' And they said, 'You’re doing that wrong. Why are you making your father the wrong color?' And I said, 'No, that’s the color that he is.' They made me feel like something was wrong with me, that it was a bizarre freakish thing."

"The Butler" opens in theaters on August 16.

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