Mariah Carey announced that her mother, Patricia, and sister, Alison, both passed away on the same day. The Grammy-winning singer shared her heartbreak, stating, “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 expressed gratitude for the time she spent with her mother in the week before her passing and asked for privacy as she mourns. “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,” she said.
Details about how Patricia and Alison died have not been made public. The news of their deaths and Carey’s statement were first reported by People Magazine.
Patricia Carey was an opera singer and was previously married to Alfred Roy Carey, Mariah’s father. The couple divorced when Mariah was just three years old.
In her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the singer discussed her complicated relationships with both her mother and sister. About her mother, she 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.”
Regarding her sister, Mariah mentioned that, for a time, it was “emotionally and physically safer for me not to have any contact” with her.
Despite the difficulties, Mariah and her mother remained in contact, even recording a duet of O Come All Ye Faithful/Hallelujah Chorus for Mariah’s Christmas album in 2010.
