Carey gives viewers a glimpse into her complicated life in 'Mariah's World'

It may seem like Mariah Carey's world, and we're just living in it.

However, the day-to-day existence of the flamboyant music superstar is quite specific to her, as her entry into the reality-show world makes clear. E! debuts the eight-episode "Mariah's World" Sunday, Dec. 4, focusing on her personal and professional events of late - and tied largely to the "Sweet Sweet Fantasy" tour that took her to Europe, then Africa and wrapped up in Honolulu just before Thanksgiving. Also covered is her "No. 1 to Infinity" concert residency at Las Vegas' Caesars Palace.

Carey's engagement to Australian businessman and investor James Packer was a big factor when production began, but that relationship ended in October ... with her revealing so much of her life in "Mariah's World" reportedly being one cause of the breakup.

"I don't know that anybody really knows the real me," reflects Carey, a winner of five Grammy Awards and many other honors over a 26-year career that has yielded 18 chart-topping singles, a record for a solo artist.

"If somebody just sees me on TV or a video or an interview, it's not enough time to get to know somebody. ... Hopefully (in the series), they'll see other sides of me that they find entertaining or does something good instead of bad."

Even with that, Carey admits that at the start of "Mariah's World," "I was a little bit withholding in terms of the amount of access that I was giving, because I'm never sure who to trust. That's just the honest truth. I didn't know exactly how things were going to be perceived. It was a lot of work to put the tour together and to get it on stage, and it was not a lot of time, so I was a little bit less free with my personality and stuff. But my goal was to make it something that can be a lasting piece of work for my fans - and even just great footage for, eventually, my kids and for myself to have."

A summer press event marking the official announcement of "Mariah's World" saw Carey perched atop a "chair" made up of bare-chested male dancers, as journalists in attendance were treated to champagne.

Carey said she cemented her image, in public and in her own mind, "when I did the album 'Butterfly.' It was a very defining moment in my life, and it literally was about emancipation, before I did the album 'The Emancipation of Mimi.' It was very much my voice, because nobody was telling me, 'Oh, you can't do this.' It was me being me, as a musician, as a writer, as a producer.

"(With) a female, most people don't think about that," Carey adds. "They are like, 'Oh, she walks into the studio, gets her hair done, sings and goes home.' No. It's a lot of work, and it's what I do, and it's what I actually love to do the most. Being back in the studio for a moment is kind of an amazing experience for me, because I get to feel like myself again, and we've captured a few of those moments in this eight-part event."