Mariah Carey revealed some sad news she was hit with after her mother, Patricia, and sister, Alison, died on the same day over the weekend.
On Monday, the Grammy Award-winning singer shared the devastating news with the public in an official statement.
“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 told People.
“I feel blessed that I was able to spend the last week with my mom before she passed,” the singer added. “I appreciate everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time.”
The Times Union reports that Mariah’s estranged sister, Alison, 63, passed away from complications with her organ function and had been in hospice care. Patricia’s exact cause of death remains unknown.
The singer has been open about the rocky relationship she shared with her mother, a trained opera singer who attended Julliard and worked as a vocal coach before welcoming Alison, Mariah, and son Morgan with her husband, Alfred Roy Carey. Mariah’s parents would eventually part ways when she was three years old.
Mariah was raised in the Suffolk County area of Long Island, New York, and lived primarily with her mother following her parents’ divorce. Alfred died of cancer in 2002 at age 72.
“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,” the singer wrote in her 2020 memoir, “The Meaning of Mariah Carey.”
“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 added.
Mariah has credited her mother for serving as her first inspiration as a singer.
“I would sing little tunes around the house, to my mother’s delight. And she always encouraged me,” she shared in the memoir.
The singer and her mother were able to come together in 2010 for a special performance on ABC’s Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to You special for a duet of “O Come All Ye Faithful/Hallelujah Chorus.”
Despite their rocky past, Mariah dedicated part of her memoir to her mother.
“And to Pat, my mother, who, through it all, I do believe actually did the best she could,” she wrote. “I will love you the best I can, always.”
She also shared why she remained estranged from her siblings at the time writing it was “emotionally and physically safer for me not to have any contact” with her or Morgan.
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