Tommy Mottola Apologizes for Being Obsessive with Mariah Carey (Watch)

*Many see Tommy Mottola as the former controlling husband that oppressed Mariah Carey in the peaking moments of her career. So he’s apologizing about his behavior in his new career biography, “Hitmaker.”

But it’s not what you’re probably thinking it is. The music man sees things much differently than others, saying his former wife and masterpiece was too young to handle the pressures of becoming a star.

He told “Today” host Matt Lauer that the pressures of fame and being young were much too much for the rising star at the time.

“I guess that at 20 years old, all of the things that it takes to make a super star and all of the pressures that go along with that–and then being thrown in the middle of a routine that is almost unbearable to withstand for anyone–could absolutely feel that those pressures would be overwhelming.”

Tommy also denies being anything Mariah described him to be, saying he was just a bit obsessive for her success.

“No, I did not hypnotize Mariah. No, I did not hypnotize her into selling 200 million albums. No, I did not chain her to the recording studio in the mansion we built after we were married,” he writes in Hitmaker. “If it seems like I was controlling, let me apologize again.”