Mariah Carey faces a possible legal battle after trying to trademark the title "Queen of Christmas" after another singer, Elizabeth Chan who records Christmas music, filed an objection to the claim.
Singer Darlene Love, who also performs in the holiday music space, wrote on Facebook claiming that David Letterman "officially declared" her the "Queen of Christmas" a year before Carey released her hit "All I Want for Christmas is You." Love, who said she is 81-years-old and is "NOT changing anything," delivered a message to Carey, writing that the pop icon can contact her lawyers if she has a problem.
As Variety reported, Chan has built up a strong following and is said to be the only singer who exclusively devotes herself to releasing a Christmas album each year. She has already released an album titled "Queen of Christmas."
Love released an album called "Phil Spector's Christmas Album," said to be considered one of the best Christmas pop albums of all time, released in 1963.
Carey, though, has seen great success with her 1994 album, which includes the hit "All I Want for Christmas is You," which skyrocketed to commercial success, becoming one of the best-selling Christmas albums ever, the BBC reported.
And therein lies the core of the battle, partly a fight to control a lucrative consumer space happening around the holiday shopping season, but also partly generational.
Carey has released multiple other holiday tracks and regularly performs at various events and shows each year during the holiday season.
ICYMI #queenofchristmas https://t.co/OewZ1DftwE
— The Queen of Christmas (@lizchanmusic) August 15, 2022
Accordingto Variety, Chan said, “Christmas has come way before any of us on earth, and hopefully will be around way after any of us on earth."
She said, "I feel very strongly that no one person should hold onto anything around Christmas or monopolize it in the way that Mariah seeks to in perpetuity. That’s just not the right thing to do. Christmas is for everyone. It’s meant to be shared; it’s not meant to be owned."
The singer continued on Carey's venture for legal control, saying, “She’s trying to trademark this in every imaginable way. Clothing, liquor products, masks, dog collars, it’s all over the map. If you knit a ‘queen of Christmas’ sweater, you should be able to sell it on Etsy to somebody else so they can buy it for their grandma. It’s crazy, it would have that breadth of registration.”
In 2018 the New Yorker profiled Chanin an article titled simply: "The Queen of Christmas" and called her “America’s most successful, and perhaps only, full-time Christmas-song singer-slash-composer.”
