Singer-songwriter Mariah Carey has expressed her sorrow over the passing of her mother, Patricia, and her sister, Alison, both of whom she said died on the same day over the weekend.
“My heart is broken that I’ve lost my mother this past weekend. Sadly, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life on the same day,” Carey said in a statement to multiple news outlets on Monday.
Carey, 55, did not offer any details about the cause of Patricia’s and Alison’s deaths. The Grammy-winning artist also did not specify the exact date of their passing.
In her statement, the singer expressed her gratitude for the love and support she has received, while also requesting privacy during this “impossible time.”
“I feel blessed that I was able to spend the last week with my mom before she passed,” she added.
Patricia, a Juilliard-trained opera singer, was reportedly 87 when she died. The Epoch Times could not independently verify her age.
She was married to Alfred Roy Carey, and they had three children together, including Carey’s elder brother, Morgan. The couple separated when the “All I Want for Christmas” singer was 3 years old. Alfred died of a rare form of cancer in 2002 at age 72.
Carey has had a complicated relationship with her mother and sister. In her 2020 memoir, “The Meaning of Mariah Carey,” the singer described her journey with her mother as “a whole rainbow of emotions.”
“Like many aspects of my life, my journey with my mother has been full of contradictions and competing realities,” Carey wrote in her memoir.
“Our relationship is a prickly rope of pride, pain, shame, gratitude, jealousy, admiration and disappointment. A complicated love tethers my heart to my mother’s.”
Despite their strained relations, Carey mentioned in her interviews that her mother was an inspiration behind her music career. They recorded a duet of “O Come All Ye Faithful/Hallelujah Chorus” for Carey’s second Christmas album in 2010.
In February 2021, Alison sued the singer for $1.25 million, citing “immense emotional distress” caused by the release of the memoir, in which Carey had accused her sister of putting her in unsafe situations as a child.
Alison stated in her lawsuit that Carey’s memoir contains “cruel and outrageous allegations.” She accused the singer of using “her status as a public figure to attack her penniless sister” and “generating sensational headlines describing her lurid claims to promote sales of her book.” The lawsuit was unresolved when Alison died at 63 years old.
