Mariah Carey’s mother, Patricia, and sister, Alison, died over the weekend, the American singer has said in a statement. “My heart is broken that I’ve lost my mother this past weekend,” Carey said on Monday. “Sadly, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life on the same day.
” The singer said she feels blessed to have spent time with her mother in the week before her death, and has asked for privacy. No further details were released about the causes of death. Patricia, 87, was a former opera singer and vocal coach of Irish-America descent.
In Carey's 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the five-time Grammy Award-winning singer detailed her complicated relationship with her mother, saying that it "caused me so much pain and confusion”. Carey said competition came between the two and that professional jealousy "comes with the territory of success, but when the person is your mother and the jealousy is revealed at such a tender age, it’s particularly painful”. But she also spoke the deep love she had for her mother, writing in the dedication: “To Pat, my mother, who, through it all, I do believe actually did the best she could.
I will love you the best I can, always.” In an interview with Gayle King in 2022, Carey said that the criticism she was subject to by her mother growing up “definitely had an effect on me”. She added that she has always credited her mother with exposing her to music.
Carey’s relationship with her older sister Alis.