What We Really Know About Will Smith And Mariah Carey's Friendship

Celebrities tend to be best friends with other celebrities. After all, only a fellow celeb can truly understand what they're going through. These friends turn to each other when the going gets tough, in times when the pressures of being in the spotlight get overbearing. They also defend one another when they're unfairly criticized, support each other's projects, and hype the other one up on red carpets.

Many wonderful friendships that have stood the test of time were born in Hollywood. Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire are still as close today as they were as kids, as is the perennial bromance of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The comedy tandem that is Tina Fey and Amy Poehler is still going strong, and the same goes for on-screen roomies Courteney Cox and Jennifer Aniston.

But there are also celebrity friendships that you may not know about, much less heard about. Did you know that Kris Jenner and former *NSYNC-er Lance Bass are close pals? Or how about the fact that David Beckham gets first dibs on Snoop Dogg's releases? There are a lot of unlikely celebrity pairings in Tinseltown, and apparently, Mariah Carey and Will Smith are one of them.

Mariah Carey had the internet in shambles when she once shared a photo of her and Will Smith on her Instagram account. "I still can't believe this picture," she wrote in the caption. And neither can we! Both stars seem to be part of entirely different Hollywood cliques, so learning that they knew each other on a personal level was a nice surprise. In the photo, Smith and Carey posed like they're attending prom, but instead of dresses and tuxes, they're sporting the most '90s outfits known to man. The "Butterfly" singer donned a pink dress and a yellow scrunchie, while Smith looked every bit the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with his baby blue muscle tee.

In her memoir "The Meaning of Mariah Carey," the star shared that he had first met Smith at an L.A. radio station concert, where she had been singing backup vocals for another artist. "Will and I were both really young, and looked it," she wrote. "Will was tall and lanky, dresses as if he expected a pickup game of hoops could break out at any moment. He was incredibly friendly and funny ... Immediately I could tell that he was not only super talented but really bright and laser-focused."

After that meet-cute, the two forged a friendship. "Will and I would sometimes hang out at Rascals," Carey recalled in her book. "He was an uncomplicated friend. Both of us were absolutely ambitious and still maintained a childlike wonder and curiosity about the world. Our relationship was always platonic and never got weird."

It's clear that Mariah Carey has been a fan of Will Smith from the get-go, but he was in awe of her as well. In fact, he believed in her so much that he brought her to his label before she ha a record deal. "After he heard me sing, Will believed in my talent. He took me with him to Def Jam Recordings, the hottest new hip-hop label at the time, where he was signed," the "Vision of Love" singer wrote in her memoir. "Will had never heard my demo; he'd only heard me sing at the concert, but that was enough for him."

Though Carey didn't end up signing with the label, but she said that she was "grateful for Will's confidence" in her abilities. While these two friends are rarely seen with each other and have not been vocal about their relationship, it's nice to know that they had one another when they were rising stars. Plus, it's clear that they're still close today — Carey even surprised Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, for her 50th birthday last month.