Happy birthday to Mariah Carey, who hits the big 5-0 today.
The pop superstar's birthday plans are likely to be on ice due to the coronavirus lockdown in the US, though like other celebrities the singer has been keeping herself busy - posting handwashing PSAs with her twins Moroccan and Monroe (Roc and Roe) and working out in rubber gloves in her home gym.
Mariah Carey has enjoyed plenty of highs (and high notes) as she taps into her sixth decade. This year she became the first artist to hit number one on the Billboard 100, topping out in the 1990s, Noughties, 2010s and 2020s with 'All I Want For Christmas', she has also sold more than 200 million records worldwide and invented the word 'camouflagian.'
She has also consistently refused to acknowledge the existence of J.Lo.
In what would go on to become one of the biggest pop shades in history - and a true meme for the ages - in the early 2000s Mariah Carey was asked about Lopez by a German TV interviewer.
"I don't know her," the popstar replied with a smile.
It would have been impossible for Carey to not know fellow New Yorker J.Lo by that point. Lopez was already world-famous thanks to both her music and Hollywood. career Her 2001 album J.Lo had stormed the charts, featuring the essential R&B hit 'My Love Don't Cost A Thing,' and she starred in the rom-com The Wedding Planner with Matthew McConaughey the very same year.
Reports of intense rivalry between her and Carey were also widely rumoured.
The "I don't know her" line appeared to be the perfect diss (what's more insulting to a world-famous rival than pretending they don't exist?) and Carey would maintain her position as shade queen for years.
In 2009, she was asked again by a radio interviewer about Lopez and replied, "I don't know the woman."
She said, "There were things in the past that are from the past. I think there was more confusion courtesy of a record company issue."
The line became so iconic in the Mariah hall of fame that fans began creating their own "I don't know her" merch.
"I really wasn’t trying to be funny" she told The Cut in 2014, "I was just being honest and everybody’s kind of blowing it out of proportion. This guy had a shirt on and it was a picture of me that he made and the quote was underneath it — and I’m going to leave you hanging as to what it was."
What of Lopez herself? The popstar has insisted the pair do know each other and that Carey must have had a "forgetful" moment.
"She's forgetful I guess" Lopez told Wendy Williams, "We've met many times! I don't know her that well."
Clearly aware how legendary the 'I don't know her' line had become, in 2016 Carey was asked by TMZ what she thought about people referencing it "all these years later" and replied with a smile, "I still don't know her" before sweeping into a car.
She also used it on Demi Lovato, who had called Carey's treatment of Lopez "nasty":
“I don’t know her either,” Carey quipped to Andy Cohen. “And so I wouldn’t say anything to her. She should come up, introduce herself to me, say, ‘Here’s my opinion, what do you think about it?’ That’s how you handle s**t, OK?”
Later, she said of Ariana Grande, “Honestly, I’m not familiar – I listen to hip-hop more than I listen to pop music.”
