“Wherever we went we were on the top table and that was because of her, not me. She was kind and she took an interest in my life,” Packer, 51, tells author-journalist Damon Kitney in new biography The Price of Fortune – The Untold Story of Being James Packer.
Mariah, 48, “is insanely bright”, Packer enthuses.
“That is before you get to the voice, which is out of this world. I probably went to 10 of her concerts and they were all fantastic.”
But the troubled businessman, who earlier this year admitted to mental health issues, recalls that shortly before he was due to marry the star, “I was in a bad, bad way.”
By February 2016, James was battling a deep depression, exacerbated by his financial wrangle with sister Gretel over her share of their late father Kerry’s estate.
“James was completely stressed out, having to get a billion dollars to pay his sister out which would place him heavily in debt,” Kitney tells WHO.
“Then he had this added pressure of a March wedding to worry about and he went into meltdown mode.”
“I then head back to the boat, Mariah and I break up and Mariah gets off the boat,” he tells Kitney.
The book quotes a source saying Packer took full responsibility for the breakup.
“James just felt he needed to cut the cord."
For the full extract, be sure to pick up the latest issue of WHO - out now!
