Mariah Carey reveals her mother and sister died on the same day ...
NZ Herald
26 Aug, 2024 09:34 PM2 mins to read
Mariah Carey is grieving the loss of her mother Patricia and sister Alison on the same day. Photo / Greg Bowker
Mariah Carey has revealed that her mother Patricia and sister Alison died on the same day.
The 55-year-old star told People in a statement this week, “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.”
The Grammy-winning artist said she was grateful to have spent her mother’s final moments by her side, telling the outlet, “I feel blessed that I was able to spend the last week with my mom before she passed.
“I appreciate everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time.”
Patricia was 87 when she died and Alison was 63. The causes of their deaths have not yet been confirmed.
Carey’s mother trained as an opera singer and vocal coach, welcoming daughters Alison, Mariah and a son named Morgan with her husband Alfred Roy Carey. The couple split when Carey was 3.
The All I Want for Christmas singer has been candid about her complex relationship with her mother during her life, previously writing in her 2020 memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey, “Like many aspects of my life, my journey with my mother has been full of contradictions and competing realities.”
She described the relationship as a “prickly rope of pride, pain, shame, gratitude, jealousy, admiration and disappointment”.
Despite their differences, Carey and her mother united for a Christmas special in 2010, performing O Come All Ye Faithful and part of the Hallelujah chorus in a duet for ABC’s Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to You.
Carey also wrote of her sister Alison and brother Morgan that at times it was “emotionally and physically safer for me not to have any contact” with them. She’s previously claimed that Alison, a former drug addict, attempted to “sell her out to a pimp” and offered her cocaine and that Morgan was “extremely violent” towards her.
Speaking to talk show host Oprah Winfrey at the time of the book’s release, Carey recalled feeling constant fear while growing up.
“It’s described through the feeling of when a storm is about to happen ... it’s a scary thing but you sense it and you learn to navigate your behaviour because of it.”
Carey’s father died in 2002 at the age of 72.
