Did Mariah Carey Write the Song 'All I Want For Christmas Is You'?

Mariah Carey boasts arguably one of the most loved Christmas songs of all time with her hit "All I Want For Christmas Is You."

The holiday anthem was first released in 1994—though it was not actually eligible to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 until 1998 because it was not originally released as a commercial single—and has been consistently popular ever since.

The song's impact is so enduring that on December 2019, on the song's 25th anniversary, "All I Want For Christmas Is You" finally hit number one on the Hot 100 thanks to a passionate campaign by Carey's fans, known as "The Lambily."

In 2021, it reached another milestone as it became the first holiday single to receive the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) Diamond Award, issued in recognition of the song collecting 10 million sales and streams in the U.S.

Carey, 52, said in a press release at the time that the song's ongoing popularity "never ceases to amaze [her] and fill [her] heart with a multitude of emotions."

"It blows my mind that "All I Want For Christmas Is You" has endured different eras of the music industry," she added.

Mother-of-two Carey celebrates the season of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" every year and on November 1, 2022, the singer posted a hilarious clip of her attire transforming from a Halloween witch costume to a Santa Claus outfit while she declaring, "It's time!" with her famous hit in the background.

So, as we prepare to hear "All I Want For Christmas Is You" blasting from radios, headphones, and speakers all Christmas long, fans have one big question on their minds: did Carey actually write the track?

Newsweek has everything you need to know about who wrote "All I Want For Christmas Is You."

Did Mariah Carey Write All I Want For Christmas Is You?

Mariah Carey did write "All I Want For Christmas Is You," alongside her songwriting partner at the time, Walter Afanasieff.

The pair worked together on some of her biggest hits, such as "Hero" and "One Sweet Day," but then became estranged and not have spoken in over two decades.

Afanasieff has spoken out in the past about his frustration about seemingly not being publicly credited by Carey for his contribution to the Christmas classic after Carey spoke to several outlets about writing the song.

Carey told Cosmopolitan that she wrote "All I Want For Christmas Is You" in an hour while watching classic Christmas movie It's a Wonderful Life.

Later, in Amazon Music documentary Mariah Carey is Christmas: The Story of "All I Want For Christmas Is You," the singer repeated this version of events, saying: "Actually, I put on It's a Wonderful Life downstairs, you could hear it throughout the house and I went into this small room and there was a little keyboard in there and I started playing."

In the documentary, Carey does mention Afanasieff briefly, as "Walter A," but says she took the song to him after she had already composed it, to co-produce.

Afanasieff is credited as a co-writer and co-producer on the track, but he says that they wrote the song together while he played the piano, while Carey says she was the one who wrote it on a Casio keyboard.

Despite their conflicting accounts of how the song came to life, Afanasieff said he was "joyous" when the song hit number one in 2019, though he did tell Variety at the time that he and Carey were still not on speaking terms.

"I want to talk about the song, since I'm a co-writer, I own 50 percent of the song, we're equal co-writers, we're so joyous and, and I mean, we're so blessed. Yet I can't call her. She doesn't call me. She continues to deny the existence of a co-writer on this," he told the publication.

Newsweek has contacted representative for Carey for comment.