Caption: The singer said she felt lucky to have spent the past week with her mother. Article information
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Mariah Carey’s mother Patricia and sister Alison died on the same day over the weekend, the American singer announced in a statement.
“I am heartbroken to have lost my mother this past weekend,” Carey said Monday.
“Sadly, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life on the same day.”
The singer said she felt blessed to have spent time with her mother in the week before her death and asked for her privacy to be respected at this delicate time.
Carey did not provide further details on the cause of death of the two women.
His mother, Patricia, 87, was a former opera singer and voice teacher of Irish-American 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 it had caused her “a lot of pain and confusion.”
Carey, 55, said competition had emerged between them.
Professional jealousy “comes with success, but when the person is your mother and the jealousy is revealed at such a tender age, it is particularly painful,” she added.
Still, she also spoke in that memoir of the deep love she had for her mother, including her in the book’s dedication: “To Pat, my mother, who, despite everything, I believe truly did the best she could. I will love you as best I can, always.”
In an interview with Gayle King in 2022, the singer said she had “definitely” been affected by her mother’s criticism when she was growing up.
She added that she had always credited her mother with introducing her to music.
Carey’s sister, Alison, 63, was known to have been receiving palliative care before she died, a family friend was quoted as saying by the Times Union, a New York state newspaper. The cause of death was not disclosed.
Mariah and Alison also had a complex relationship.
In her memoir, Carey wrote that she was estranged from her sister Alison, as well as her brother Morgan, adding that it was “emotionally and physically safer for her to have no contact at all.”
Alison sued Carey for $1.2 million following the publication of the memoir, alleging “immense emotional distress” and calling her “vindictive.”
The singer’s father, Alfred (of Venezuelan descent), died in 2002 of cancer at the age of 72.
Carey is considered one of the most successful singers in the world.
Her single All I Want For Christmas Is You is the best-selling Christmas song by a female artist of all time.
She holds the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles by a solo artist with 19 songs, has sold over 220 million records worldwide, and was a judge on the competition show American Idol.
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