Vocal superstar Mariah Carey has opened up about a shocking incident that took place in her childhood where somebody spat at her.

The beauty stars in Lee Daniels' new film 'The Butler' (pictured below), which is about an African-American butler's experience of being a server in the White House, and speaking about the subject of race she explained that she was once the victim of a racist attack.

She told Yahoo! Movies that a stranger on a bus spat right in her face because of the colour of her skin and confessed that her experience almost mirrors a scene in the film, which is a recreation of the Woolworth's Lunch Counter sit-in (where a white woman spits on a black student):

"I know people would be in shock and not really want to believe or accept that, but it did. That right there, that was almost the deepest thing to me in the movie because I know what she went through - and it happened to be a bus as well. It was a school bus, in the face and in the same way."