Carey closes in on Elvis

MARIAH CAREY is on the verge of scoring her 18th US number one single - which will tie her with king of rock and roll ELVIS PRESLEY.

Carey will reach the landmark next weekend if her latest track Touch My Body - from her new album E=MC2 - reaches the top spot.

The achievement will confirm Carey's status as the best-selling female singer of all time, and take her closer to the record held by the Beatles - who landed 20 US number ones.

Carey has also tackled celebrity blogger PEREZ HILTON on the airwaves on Monday after he attacked her performance on TV show SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE.

The online gossip turned on Carey over the weekend calling Migrate, her collaboration with rapper T-Pain, "disappointing".

Caustic Hilton upset Carey by claiming the song will be the singer's next single, and stating "it sucks".

And so the hitmaker took matters into her own hands during a radio chat with Los Angeles DJ Ryan Seacrest, revealing "I'm kinda tired of it (criticism)."

Seacrest then invited Hilton to join the chat by phone, prompting Carey to tell him, "I love you, no matter what you do... (but) you can't hate on that song with T-Pain; you need to listen to it again."

She then added sarcastically, "I think I've had this job for a long time."

And Carey insisted the song she performed on live TV in America on Saturday night is not her new single.

She added, "I'm definitely not even releasing Migrate as a second single. It was just fun to do on Saturday Night Live... My next single is going to be a ballad, darling. I ain't stupid... I ain't trying to mess with what we already know.

"We don't talk about personal lives."

And when Hilton attempted to speculate about Carey's love life, the sassy pop star cut him off, stating, "Y'know Perez, that's for you and me to have a personal, private moment and discuss what we want the world to know."