Who

The music heavyweight who once ran Sony Music, Mottola is the former husband of pop diva Mariah Carey.

Backstory

Bronx native Mottola sang and played the trumpet as a kid. He got into a lot of trouble, too—he was known as the "baddest boy in New Rochelle"—and was sent to military school for a spell after he ran away from home. After dropping out of college and pursuing a short-lived stint as a vocalist, his career prospects improved when he settled down with Lisa Clark, the daughter of ABC Records chief, Sam Clark. (Tommy converted to Judaism to marry her.) By the early 1970s, he had founded a music management company, Don Tommy—later renamed Champion Entertainment—where he shepherded Hall and Oates to multi-platinum success and guided the careers of John Mellencamp and Carly Simon.

In 1987, Mottola was hired by CBS Records' Walter Yetnikoff as president. (Allen Grubman helped broker the deal.) When Sony bought the company the following year, Mottola moved up to the top spot. Mottola went on to spend 14 years running Sony Music and presided over the company during some of its most profitable years: On his watch, Sony signed the Dixie Chicks, Destiny's Child, Shakira, Mariah Carey, Ricky Martin, Celine Dion, and Jennifer Lopez, among many others. Everything changed, though, when the economics of the music industry started to shift in 2000. Sony Music reportedly lost $100 million during Mottola's last year at the company, at which point his legendarily lavish ways became less as amusing to his corporate masters looking at the bottom line. In 2002, Sony's CEO, Howard Stringer, cut Mottola loose.

Currently

Mottola is largely on the sidelines these days but he remains an influential figure in the biz. Shortly after he was ousted at Sony Music, he took over the long-defunct Universal-owned label Casablanca; the company has generated little buzz, though, save for its signing of sexually ambiguous pop singer Mika as well as Lindsay Lohan, although even she jilted the label after a year in favor of Motown Records. Mottola has also got involved with several TV projects since leaving Sony: In 2003, he served as a judge on the VH1 reality show Born to Diva; lately, he's produced programs like 2006's The Shop, a reality series set in a barbershop in Queens (which he produced in conjunction with R&B producer Corey Rooney), and Petra Nemcova's 2007 TLC show A Model Life.

In person

Gruff, tough, and with a pinky ring to match, Mottola was long one of the music industry's most intimidating figures, a Tony Soprano-like character who was always trailed by a security detail of armed cops. Colleagues and competitors frequently alluded to Mottola's presumed ties to the Mob, rumors that Mottola didn't seem to mind very much. Many say his gangster act—like, say, having people refer to him as the "capo di tutti capi"—was a clever way to intimidate employees, artists, and rivals.

Personal

Thrice-wed Mottola's personal life has always been tabloid fodder. He divorced his first wife, Lisa Clark, in 1992; they had two kids, Sarah and Michael. The following year, he married Mariah in a star-studded $5 million wedding that attracted the likes of Barbara Streisand, Bruce Springsteen, and Robert De Niro. The two divorced in 1998, but Mottola quickly moved on to other high-profile babes. He reportedly dated both Jennifer Lopez and Naomi Campbell in the late 1990s before settling down with the Mexican star Thalia in 2000. She gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter named Sabrina Sakaë, in October 2007.

Habitat

When Mottola was a kingmaker at Sony, he lived like a king too. There were five full-time assistants, a lavish townhouse on East 64th Street (purchased from David Geffen in 1999 for $13.3 million), a compound in Bedford, and a manse on Star Island. The townhouse (which included a "perfume refrigerator") was later sold for $20 million. His home in Bedford was sold to Nelson Peltz in 1999 for $20.5 million, although it burned to the ground just weeks after the sale. Mottola's latest real estate trophy is a ranch in Carbondale, Colo. which he purchased in 2006 for $47 million. The 12,000-square-foot home is situated on 900 acres and sports an 18-acre private lake. Do be careful if you stop by unannounced: Mottola keeps his collection of guns on the estate.