American singer-songwriter and record producer Mariah Carey expressed her heartbreak and revealed how she lost her mother, Patricia, and sister, Alison, on the same day in a tragic turn of events.
The Grammy-winning singer confirmed this news to People magazine. She said, “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.”
While she did not share the cause of their deaths, the 55-year-old singer has urged people to “respect her privacy” during this “impossible time”.
“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,” added Carey.
Patricia was a Juilliard-trained opera singer and vocal coach before she was married to Alfred Roy Carey and welcomed Alison, Mariah and son, Morgan.
When the Hero singer was three years old, her parents divorced.
Carey’s relationship with her mother was complicated throughout her life, according to People.
The singer had opened up about her strained relationship with her mother in 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. It’s never been only black-and-white — it’s been a whole rainbow of emotions. 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,” she wrote.
Carey and her mother continued to maintain their relationship despite their ups and downs. During the 2010 Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to You special on ABC, the mother-daughter duo got together and sang a joyful duet of O Come All Ye Faithful/Hallelujah Chorus, reported People.
Carey’s relationship with her sister was also complex.
The star wrote in the memoir that it was, at least at the time, “emotionally and physically safer for me not to have any contact” with her or Morgan.