Halle Berry, Mariah Carey, Vanessa L. Williams talk about their careers after marital breakups

Jet, March 2, 1998

A breakup of a marriage can be a very painful and devastating experience.

But superstars Halle Berry, Mariah Carey and Vanessa L. Williams are among the many celebrities who have gone through a divorce or separation and have landed right on top.

They have learned how to put the past behind them, piece their lives back together and go on with their skyrocketing careers.

Each of these talented women has seen her career continue to soar since the break-up of her marriage.

As the doors to their marriages closed, they discovered the doors to their careers opened wider than ever for them.

Each has talked openly about her career since her marital breakup.

During the time of her painful divorce last year after three years of marriage to baseball star David Justice, Berry found comfort and strength in her career. She worked diligently filming her starring role in the hilarious comedy B.A.P.S., and she stars this week in the ABC-TV miniseries The Wedding.

"I wasn't feeling very funny, so I wasn't confident that I would be able to be in that space," Berry recalls of making the Robert Townsend-directed comedy, B.A.P.S. "But it turned out to be therapeutic. I could laugh and be silly and let go of all that negative energy," she notes.

The self-assured actress says she has learned and has grown from her divorce. "I'm stronger than I ever thought I could be," she realized. "I am capable of weathering the worst of storms."

She also learned about love, men and marriage. "The next time around, I can't settle for what looks good on paper," Berry notes. "I can't settle period. I need someone who can really be there for me in an intimate way, someone who is available to me emotionally, someone who will allow me to be me and celebrate all that I am in my good and my bad parts."

Songbird Mariah Carey, 27, is separated from her husband, Tommy Mottola, 47, president and chief operating officer of Sony Music Entertainment, whose label she records on. Since the breakup of their four-year marriage, Carey has soared with the soulful album, Butterfly, and recently walked away with a coveted American Music Award.

"This is a very personal album," she points out. "With this album, every word and every emotion I put into it is coming from me."

In total control of her career, Carey's album is by far her funkiest and more soulful offering to date. She co-produced or co-wrote most of the songs on the album. Also contributing to the album are her hip hop musical friends such as Sean "Puffy" Combs, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott and members of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.

"A lot of people who only listen to pop radio see this as a huge departure. I don't think any of this is a gamble. I've had other singles on previous albums that had R&B songs. They (the record company)just never chose to release them as singles," she notes.

Carey says she and Mottola remain friends, but she adds with confidence, "Now, I'm in a place where I feel confident enough to stand alone."

With her career continuing to flourish, she plans to branch out into acting and is working on a movie project that is being developed specifically for her.

"There are a lot of personal factors that kept me from pursuing acting several years ago. I feel everything happens for a reason. If this is the time that God intended for me to get into things and explore other aspects of my creativity, then it's the right time. I don't look back in anger or resentment or self-pity. I'm very fortunate to be where I am now. We've all been through struggles."

Singer-actress Vanessa L. Williams survived a difficult divorce with her husband and manager, Ramon Hervey. Married 10 years, Williams says, "It was a painful separation, a painful divorce."

Nevertheless, her career has soared in the last year. She won great reviews for her role in Soul Food, in which she played a character who ironically, was having marital problems. She also starred opposite Laurence Fishburne in Hoodlum.

Her latest album, Next, is her first recording since her divorce, and it has leaped to the top of the charts. She also won new fans last year on her first U.S. concert tour as the opening act for superstar Luther Vandross.

Williams and her former husband share custody of their three children. She recently told EBONY Magazine in its October 1997 issue that it was difficult to leave the marriage although she "was very miserable."

She explained, "And then being Catholic, and being on the cover of EBONY with the family, and having to say, `This is not the ideal family that we portrayed on that cover. He isn't all what he's expected to be. You know, I didn't make the fight choice.' It's failure. Failure is humiliating."

Hervey, a former public relations specialist, came into her life during her reign as the first Black woman crowned Miss America. Hervey consulted and advised her when she gave up the crown and title after a magazine published explicit photographs of her.

Recognizing that some people think Hervey made her the superstar she has become today, she told EBONY: "There's a reason why I won Miss America--because of my talent, and now I'm getting the opportunities to do what I've always wanted to do. We certainly worked as a team," she explains. "But he (Hervey) did not create a singer. He did not teach me how to sing, how to dance, how to act. We worked very hard together as a team to make sure that the choices for my career could happen."