It’s like that, y’all.
Mariah Carey slashed her designer dress with a pair of bedazzled scissors while shooting the cover for her iconic 2005 album, “The Emancipation of Mimi,” photographer Markus Klinko exclusively tells Page Six Style.
“As she grabbed her scissors, she told her stylist, ‘Make this show more leg,’” he says, recounting the alterations Carey, now 54, wanted to give her glimmering metallic Threeasfour gown nearly two decades ago.
“She wanted to cut the dress. And the stylist was very reluctant because he was probably petrified … You don’t just cut designer dresses up,” Klinko continues. “He kind of didn’t know what to do.”
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That’s when the singer took matters into her own hands, the celebrity shutterbug — who has also shot the likes of Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Ice Spice, Paris Hilton and the late David Bowie — tells us.
“She just grabbed [her scissors] and cut a few more openings into that dress. And I say the rest is history because it became literally one of the most iconic music covers of all time,” Klinko says.
“And they were not normal scissors; they were definitely Mariah,” he elaborates, emphasizing that Carey’s crystallized cutting tools matched her sparkling energy — though her hasty moves to make the garment “sexier,” he says, reminded him of Johnny Depp’s slice-savvy 1990 film character, Edward Scissorhands.
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“Mariah Scissorhands: I love that title because she was so good with it, too! She was, like, done in two seconds,” Klinko says, amused. “She knew exactly what she wanted.”
The artist remembers Carey calling on him to helm the artwork for “The Emancipation of Mimi” — which became a triumph for the Grammy-winning superstar after a relative commercial lull in her robust discography — like it was yesterday.
“One evening I was actually having my dinner in my studio and I get a phone call from my rep and he said, ‘Mariah Carey’s on the other line and she wants to talk to you immediately,’” he says, noting that the request from the pop diva caught him “by surprise.”
“She told me she had a new album in the works, it was very important to her,” he says. “And she wanted to meet the next day and literally she came over to my studio within 24 hours.”
Shortly after Carey arrived at Klinko’s New York City atelier, they began sifting through his portfolio for inspiration. But when the celebrated songwriter saw his campaign for Wolford, the premium tights brand, she wanted to recreate it to a T.
“She fell in love with [the] campaign … absolutely loved that shot,” he says. “And she said, ‘I want exactly that.’”
Klinko acknowledges that he wouldn’t typically duplicate his work for a separate project, but was convinced by the thought of doing so with Carey.
“It’s something that I normally would not do, to redo my own photo,” he says. “But Mariah is so incredibly iconic that it just made a lot of sense because on the original Wolford ad, it was a model — but obviously to do this with Mariah, that was really exciting.”
Carey, for her part, was excited to show off the hard work she had been clocking in at the gym, Klinko remembers.
“She was in fantastic shape. Mariah arrived and she was really looking stunning, sexy, she had great legs and everything. I could tell she wanted to show it off. This was her cover. This was her big moment,” he tells us.
“I remember she said something like, ‘All this hard work at the gym, we don’t want to miss that.’ Those were her words and I could not agree with her any [more]. She made the right decision. She gave it the Mariah touch.”
Carey is clearly fond of the images she created with Klinko. When she presented at the 2024 Grammys last month, photos from the “Emancipation of Mimi” rollout were projected on the oversize screens behind her.
The same shots from the album — a vehicle for massive hits like “We Belong Together,” “Shake It Off” and “Don’t Forget about Us” — are being used to promote her upcoming Las Vegas residency, “The Celebration of Mimi,” at Park MGM’s Dolby Live theater.
“It’s almost 20 years, close to the 20th anniversary of that album, and … she dominated 2005 with ‘The Emancipation of Mimi.’ I think it was the biggest album of the year and I think it was the biggest album of her career, too, or at least close to that,” he says, reflecting on the LP’s enduring impact.
“I am very proud to be part of this history.”
Klinko — who also captured Carey’s March 2007 Playboy magazine cover — says he is thrilled to work with the entertainer in new capacities in the near future.
“I’m going to do some new shoots with her. I can’t really reveal too much on that, but there will be new new imagery shot very soon. And I really look forward to that,” he enthuses, expressing that he hopes to pay homage to the “Emancipation of Mimi” aesthetic.
“We will definitely keep it iconic like ‘Mimi,’” he says. “But I want to take it to the next level.”
In the meantime, Klinko is relishing in his recent Outstanding Achievement in Photography honor at the March 3 Hollywood Beauty Awards in Los Angeles.
“It’s a really nice award to win,” says the creative, who was presented the trophy by his longtime client, actress Jaime King.
“I used to be a classical concert harpist, so to be recognized for what I’ve done for three decades now — a new career I took a leap of faith to pursue — it’s very validating.”
