Who is Walter Afanasieff? ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ co-writer slams Mariah Carey over credit issues

American record producer and songwriter Walter Afanasieff recently slammed Merry Christmas singer Mariah Carey regarding her song All I Want for Christmas Is You.

The 64-year-old, who co-wrote and co-produced All I Want for Christmas Is You with Carey, appeared on Hot Takes & Deep Dives with Jess Rothschild podcast. On the podcast, the producer targeted Carey for claims that she wrote the aforementioned song when she was "just a kid."

Walter Afanasieff, who claimed the issues regarding the credits started about a decade ago, explained his side of the story by saying:

"We were both on the same page about how we wrote 'All I Want For Christmas Is You,' there was never any alternate story until probably 10 years ago. When she started to hint at the fact that, 'Oh, I wrote that song when I was a little girl!' But why weren't you saying that for 12 or 13 or 15 years prior to that? So it just sort of developed in her mind."

For the unversed, Afanasieff's comments were in reference to Mariah Carey's statement that she gave to Billboard in 2017. In her statement, the Vision of Love singer claimed:

"I am proud of this song that I wrote basically as a kid on my little Casio keyboard."

---

Walter Afanasieff, the American record producer and songwriter who has been active since the early '80s

Walter Afanasieff, formerly known as Baby Love during the '80s, is of Russian-Chinese descent and has been active in the music industry for almost four decades. He started as a jazz musician and played the keyboard with the violinist Jean-Luc Ponty.

After working as a musician, composer, and arranger for years, Afanasieff became a record producer during the late '80s and early '90s. He also served as a producer and arranger on OST for multiple Disney projects like Aladdin, Hercules, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Beauty and the Beast.

He has bagged two Grammy Awards in his career. His first came in 1999 in the Record of the Year category after he produced Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On. His second Grammy Award was for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical category, in 2000.

---

Walter Afanasieff claimed Mariah Carey doesn't understand music

During his appearance on Hot Takes & Deep Dives with Jess Rothschild podcast, Walter Afanasieff extended his claims regarding the "song credits" fiasco as he asserted that Mariah Carey "doesn't understand music."

He said:

"She doesn't play anything, she doesn't play keyboard or piano. She doesn't understand music, she doesn't know chord changes and music theory or anything like that. She doesn't know a diminished chord from a minor seventh chord to a major seventh chord."

He added:

"So to claim that she wrote a very complicated chord-structured song with her finger on a Casio keyboard when she was a little girl, it's kind of a tall tale."

The producer also narrated how he and Carey came up with All I Want for Christmas while they were already working on three songs from the latter's Merry Christmas album. Interestingly, Afanasieff collaborated with Mariah Carey on her first six studio albums.