Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels doesn’t think it’s a wise idea for Mariah Carey to appear in her upcoming reality TV show, Mariah’s World.

In a radio interview on SiriusXM’s “Bevelations” show Daniels, 56, said he didn’t think Carey was mentally ready to do reality TV.

“She is very fragile, and she has been through a lot,” he explained. “She has been used, she has been abused … Some people don’t have that Teflon sort of thing that I do, so she masks it with this coquettish thing that is hiding her nervousness and her pain and her own family’s abuse to her. She is misunderstood, because she is really, really ride or die. She really, really, really will do anything for you.”

The openly gay director/playwright recalled how Carey tricked him into appearing on her show.

“That b—,” he said jokingly. “She says, ‘Come over!’ … I show up to this room at a Kosher steakhouse somewhere on Wall Street, and the cameras are in my face and recording our conversation! And she says, ‘Dahling, dahling, dahling, sign [the release form], sign it, sign it, we’re doing a little documentary.’

“The next day, I’m reading … that she has a f—ing reality show, and I’m terrified about it. I don’t know if it’s a wise idea for her. I was at the gym, I saw it, and I was like, ‘Oh, Lord. What is she doing?’ I think it’s bigger than her. I think it’s not a good idea. I think that the true geniuses have to be saved from themselves sometimes. But I have no problem telling her, ‘What are you doing?’ and she listens, too.”

Daniels compared Carey’s current situation to the late Whitney Houston whose reality TV show with then-husband, Bobby Brown, was disastrous for her public image.

“Someone of Mariah’s stature should not be doing this. Whitney Houston did a reality show and that was the real end of it. We hope that it doesn’t end up being like when Whitney did ‘Being Bobby Brown.’”