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Mariah Carey paid for half of her own prison. It cost $32 million, sat on 50 acres, and had armed guards and cameras in most of the rooms. She named it Sing Sing, after the maximum-security prison 10 miles away. The man who held the keys was her husband. He also ran her record label. His name was Tommy Mottola, the head of Sony Music, about 20 years older than her. They married in 1993. By then she was one of the biggest stars on earth. Every song she sang made money for his company. Almost every room she walked into had a camera. In her memoir she says she gave the design ideas for the house and put up half the money. She built the walls herself. Her voice was selling millions of records on his label. At home, she says, her own voice was shushed. “I was scared a lot of the time,” she told Keke Palmer. “You never know who to trust.” She says she wished she could fly away. She couldn’t. And she wasn’t asking for much. If he had let her go to a friend’s house or a spa now and then, she says, she would have stayed. He didn’t. She left in 1997. Years later he wrote his side in his own memoir: “If it seemed like I was controlling, I apologize. Was I obsessive? Yes. But that was also part of the reason for her success.” In the video below, Keke asks her if it was all about money. She says she never thought so. Then she changes her answer. “You can control the money.” Here’s what I think. A man who signs your checks and shares your bed has two ways to keep you. She paid for half the walls, and she still couldn’t walk out the gate to see a friend. I wrote about Kevin Federline selling a book about Britney. Different men, same lesson: when he controls the money, he controls the story. The fantasy had 50 acres, armed guards and a husband who owned the label.