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Mariah Carey shared a sad life update this week. She told People that both her mother and sister died over the weekend on the same day.
Mariah’s mother, Patricia Carey, was a Julliard-trained singer who encouraged and inspired Carey to pursue a singing career. She raised Mariah, her sister Alison, and her brother Morgan on Long Island after divorcing their father, Alfred, who died of cancer at the age of 72 in 2002.
“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,” Mariah said in a statement provided to the outlet.
“I feel blessed that I was able to spend the last week with my mom before she passed,” she added. “I appreciate everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time.”
Carey was estranged from her sister and her brother. Alison and Morgan filed defamation lawsuits after the publication of Mariah’s 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey.
In that same memoir, Mariah shared that she had a sometimes strained relationship with her mother.
“Like many aspects of my life, my journey with my mother has been full of contradictions and competing realities. It’s never been only black-and-white — it’s been a whole rainbow of emotions,” Carey wrote. “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.”
In 2010, Mariah and her mother performed together for a holiday special, Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to You, which was broadcast on ABC.
Mariah accused Alison, who is eight years older, of being an addict who offered her several kinds of drugs. She alleges, also in her memoir, that her brother was once violent with her mother and that he provided “party favors” for people hanging out on the club scene in the 80s.
He has since moved to Italy with his wife, but his defamation case remains active. The sisters did agree that their household was dysfunctional, with Alison saying in her lawsuit that their mother forced her to attend “satanic worship meetings” as a pre-teen.
No cause of death or further details about Patricia or Alison Carey’s death were shared.
See how social media is wishing Carey the best during this heartbreaking time.
