Mariah Carey has shed new light on one of the most intriguing chapters of her career: the secret grunge album she recorded during the 1990s but never officially released. Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, the singer not only discussed the project openly but also allowed a snippet of one of its songs, “Prom Queen,” to be played on air.

The project, titled Someone’s Ugly Daughter, was recorded while Carey was simultaneously working on her blockbuster 1995 album Daydream, which produced hits like “Always Be My Baby” and “Fantasy.” According to Carey, the grunge sessions were an outlet from the tightly controlled pop environment she was working within at the time. “I was just rebelling,” Carey told Fallon. “I loved doing , but at the end of the night, when the band was still there, I’d say, ‘Can you play a grungy guitar riff so I can get out of my head.’”

Carey brought the album’s artwork with her to the show, explaining that she personally designed part of the cover. “I do like the cover … and I drew this cover,” she said. “I didn’t draw the roach. The roach is real.”

Fallon praised the music after hearing the clip, while house bandleader Questlove went so far as to call it her “best record.” Carey also noted that she doesn’t believe the album is formally owned by any label. “It’s not out, and it has never been released,” she said, stressing that the material has remained largely hidden for nearly three decades.

The song “Prom Queen,” which Fallon previewed, features Carey singing in a slightly different vocal style, adopting an accent as she delivers the refrain: “I can be anything that I want to be / Someday I will really show them all.”

Interest in the project reignited last week when SZA played snippets from it during an Apple Music interview with Carey in New York City. Among the tracks teased was a song titled “Hermit,” which SZA described with enthusiasm. Carey told Fallon that she has “always regretted not putting it out,” adding that label executives at the time intervened. “Sony at the time … was a little controlling,” she explained. “They kinda stopped me at that point.”

While the album never appeared under Carey’s name, portions of it did surface in 1995 with a different vocalist, Clarissa Dane, fronting the band project. Carey previously explained to Rolling Stone in 2022 that she wrote the lyrics and recorded her own vocals before label resistance derailed her plan to release it anonymously.

“This was my outlet and nobody knew about it,” she said in that earlier interview. “We were working for 15, 16 hours on scrutinizing stuff , and then we just made this record at the same time. I would write the lyrics, go and sing it.”

Carey added that the record company feared the lyrical content might clash with her established image. “I honestly wanted to put the record out back then under the same pseudonym and just let them discover that it’s me,” she said. “But that idea was stomped and squashed. So Clarissa came in.”

Though Carey has spoken about the project before, her decision to share actual snippets marks a significant step toward bringing the material into the public. Fallon himself urged her to release it, while Carey admitted she is still considering the possibility.