Mariah Carey has released some new LGBTQ+ themed merchandise on her website just in time for Pride Month in June.
At MariahCareyShop.com, the Grammy-winning singer has half a dozen new items for sell, including t-shirts, hoodies and a “throw shade fan,” a rainbow-colored handheld fan with the word “Shade” printed on it.
Most of the new merch references back to Carey’s 1999 album Rainbow, which features songs like “Heartbreaker,” “Thank God I Found You,” “Can’t Take That Away” and “Crybaby.”
One of the shirts features a print of the Rainbow album cover. Another shirt is a body tee designed to look like you’re wearing what Carey is wearing on the Rainbow album cover. Another shirt features Mariah as her character Billie Frank from the 2001 film Glitter. The black hoodie available for purchase features a rainbow butterfly representing her 1997 album Butterfly.
Carey has always been a strong supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. In 2016, she was presented with the “Ally Award” at the GLAAD Media Awards for being someone who “consistently used their platform to support and advance LGBT equality and acceptance.”
During her acceptance speech, Carey defined the acronym LGBTQ+ in her own. She said the letter stood for “legendary,” “gorgeous,” “beautiful,” “tantalizing” and “quality.”
“Some of the songs that I have written, like I have a song called ‘Outside’ that a lot of people from the gay community have always said they grew up listening to and were like, ‘That helped me come out to my family,’” Carey says in an interview in 2016. “And so, as a songwriter, I wrote that song about me feeling like an outsider, about being biracial and a lot of other things in my life. I like to leave it open so people can relate it to their own lives.”