Tommy Mottola is ready to tell of his rise from The Bronx and New Rochelle as a mediocre singer dubbed T.D. Valentine to the head of Sony Music in its heyday, when he was discovering such stars as Shakira, Beyoncé and Mariah Carey — who soon became his wife.
Mottola has signed a deal to write “The Last Starmaker,” to be published by Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group USA, in early 2012.
“It’s time to tell his story,” a friend of Mottola said. “The music industry is virtually over. Cream will always rise to the top. But the days of starmaking are over. Kids today only want one song, not the album, and they don’t know who the artist is.”
Mottola will tell how Walter Yetnikoff brought him into CBS Records, and then turned on him after Yetnikoff self-destructed and lost his job. Since Yetnikoff trashed Mottola in his 2004 memoir, “Howling at the Moon,” Mottola is expected to wreak some payback.
“The Last Starmaker” will also debunk the myth that Mottola was a jealous svengali over Carey. He recently told a friend, “150 [Carey] albums later, my answer is, ‘Kiss my behind.’ ”
According to a source, the book will explain that Carey, who was quite young at the time, came from a “confusing upbringing. Sudden success is enough to intoxicate anybody and to distort the perception of anybody and anything around them.”
Mottola will relate how he signed Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez and then found a song for them to sing as a duet, which was the beginning of their love affair.
One chapter will tell how he strong-armed the Grammys one year to put Ricky Martin on the top-rated awards show, telling producers, “We’re going to pull everyone off the show unless Ricky gets to sing.”
And Mottola will explain why he deserved to make $10 million-plus a year. A friend said, “When people did well around Tommy, they all became wealthy.”