[MrCee]

Mariah Carey says she sympathizes with Rihanna – who was assaulted by ex-boyfriend Chris Brown last February – because she herself has been the victim of emotional and mental abuse.

In an interview airing Wednesday night on CNN's Larry King Live, when asked how she reacted to the Rihanna news, Carey, 40, responds, "I was very sequestered, as you know, when I first started out ... I wasn't really allowed out of the house, so I can't imagine what she went through."

Yet when pressed if she had ever personally been the victim of abuse, Carey – who married singer Nick Cannon, 29, last year – does admit to painful episodes in a previous relationship.

"Emotionally, mentally, in other ways ... It's scary," she says. "You know, I just think you get into a situation and you feel locked in. If your situation is similar to one of the situations I've been in – which I won't harp on – for me, to really get out, it was difficult because there was a connection that was not only a marriage but a business thing, where the person was in control of my life."

In the interview, Carey also shoots down rumors that she's pregnant, telling King, "It would be the happiest thing in my life, but what I'm saying is right now with this movie [Precious] coming out, with the next few singles from the album and those things that I'm doing, I need to focus on that, because I cannot do the having-a-child thing halfway."

"I wouldn't be just like, 'Oh, I'm having a child, Yay! Let me get a nanny so I can give her the baby. Take the kid,' " she adds. "That doesn't work for me. I don't believe in that."

Mariah Carey Says She Was Emotionally and Mentally Abused - Mariah Carey : People.com