Mariah Carey’s Mother and Sister Died on Same Day, Singer Says Her ‘Heart Is Broken’

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mariah Carey’s mother, Patricia, and sister, Alison, died on the identical day, the singer said Monday.

“My heart is broken that I lost my mother this past weekend. Sadly, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life that same day,” the Grammy-winning singer said in a press release.

“I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to spend one last week with my mom before she passed away,” the statement continued. “I appreciate everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time.”

On Monday, the Times Union reported that Alison, who had long been estranged from Carey, died at age 63 from organ complications and was under hospice care.

The news of their deaths and Carey’s statement was first reported by People magazine.

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Patricia was an opera singer trained on the Juilliard School, which Carey says inspired her from an early age.

“I would sing little tunes around the house, to my mother’s delight. And she always encouraged me to do that,” she wrote in her 2020 memoir, “The Meaning of Mariah Carey.”

Patricia was previously married to Alfred Roy Carey, the singer’s father. Her parents divorced when the “Vision of Love” singer was 3. Carey grew up in Suffolk County, Long Island, and lived primarily together with her mother after her parents divorced. Her father died of cancer in 2002 on the age of 72.

Carey detailed her complicated relationship together with her mother and sister in her memoir, wherein she wrote that she and her mother argued continuously, causing her “a great deal of pain and confusion,” and accused her sister of putting her in dangerous situations during her childhood.

“Like so many aspects of my life, my journey with my mother has been fraught with contradictions and competing realities. It has never been black and white—it has been a rainbow of emotions,” Carey wrote within the book. “Our relationship is a bittersweet string of pride, pain, shame, gratitude, jealousy, admiration, and disappointment. A complicated love that ties my heart to my mother’s.”

Carey kept in contact together with her mother and even recorded a duet of “O Come All Ye Faithful/Hallelujah Chorus” for the singer’s second Christmas album in 2010.