WASHINGTON — Mariah Carey’s mother Patricia and sister Alison both died on the same day, the singer said Monday. “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 singer said in a statement.
“I feel blessed that I was able to spend the last week with my mom before she passed,” the statement continued. “I appreciate everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time.” Details of the cause of death for the singer's mom and sister were immediately known.
People Magazine first reported the news of their deaths and Carey's statement. Patricia was an opera singer and was previously married to Alfred Roy Carey, the singer’s father. The parents divorced when the “Obsessed” singer was 3.
Carey detailed her complicated relationship with her mother and her sister in her 2020 memoir, “The Meaning of Mariah Carey,” where she wrote that she and her mother often clashed and accused her sister of putting her in unsafe situations as a child. "There was a lot of unrest in my 'household,' if there ever was a household, and I had a difficulty coming from such a dysfunctional family," she told Gayle King in a 2020 interview. "I needed to kind of heal myself and heal that inner child.
" In the same interview, the singer credited her mother with exposing her to music. Despite the strained relationship, Carey maintained in contact .