VISION OF LOVE & OTHER EMOTIONS: The N.Y. Post was afforded a peek at Tommy Mottola’s memoir, Hitmaker, out Jan. 15 (the day before Mariah Carey’s debut on American Idol, as the paper helpfully points out) and devoted a story to the dirt—or revelations—the book contains. “The story focuses primarily on the relationship of the mogul and the future star, from their meeting in 1988 through their marriage, which lasted from 1993 to ’97. Mottola “felt that he and Carey had ‘great chemistry,’ as he puts it,” writes the Post’s Maureen Callahan. “So even though he was married with two children, Carey, ‘flirtatious from the moment I set eyes on her,’ caused him to act against his better judgment. And he acted like a teenager himself, going in to work and gossiping with fellow executives about the details of his nights with Carey. It never occurs to him, all these years later, that the power imbalance was inherently toxic. Mottola’s therapist, however, did, and repeatedly told him not to pursue his young protégée. ‘You don’t understand!’ he’d tell his shrink, according to the book. ‘Mariah is going to be the biggest star in the world. She’s going to be as big as Michael Jackson.’ Undeterred, his therapist kept telling Mottola that Carey was still just a teenage girl, one barely out of a rough upbringing, who was in no way his equal—chronologically, mentally, emotionally, professionally. What the shrink didn’t understand was that Mottola wanted exactly that: an empty vessel, someone he could create and then unleash upon the world as the ultimate Tommy Mottola production.” If you’re titillated, there’s more where that came from. (1/7a)