“I’m heartbroken over the loss of my mother,” said Mariah Carey. Tragically, the singer’s sister also died on the same day. Carey was photographed performing in Los Angeles last year. Emma McIntyre/Getty Images Hide caption
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Singer Mariah Carey announced a family tragedy, saying that her mother, Patricia, and sister, Alison, recently died on the same day.
“My heart is broken after losing my mother this past weekend,” Carey said in a statement on Monday. “Sadly, and in a tragic turn of events, my sister also passed away the same day.”
Carrie said she was happy to be able to spend her final week with her mother, who reportedly moved to a care facility in Florida several years ago, while her sister, Allison, died in New York state, according to local media.
“We thank everyone for their love, support and respect for our privacy during this difficult time,” she added. News of the two women’s deaths was first reported by People magazine.
The pop superstar did not provide details about the cause of death. Patricia Carey was 87, according to public records.
Allison Carey died at age 63 while receiving hospice care south of Albany in Greene County, New York, according to the Times Union. The paper quoted David Baker, a friend of Allison Carey’s who helped her with housing and welfare issues, as saying her death was due to organ function problems. She reportedly struggled with substance abuse.
Carey, 55, has said she had a complicated relationship with her family and a turbulent childhood, and she has linked it to her own past, during which she publicly experienced emotional struggles despite her singing career reaching unprecedented heights.
“I think my tolerance for dysfunction is very high because I grew up in a very dysfunctional environment,” Carey told NPR in 2006.
Carey maintained a bond with her mother, singing a Christmas medley together in 2010 and spending time with her young children, but was reportedly estranged from her sister, who sued Carey over allegations made about her in her 2020 memoir, “The Meaning of Mariah Carey.”
In her memoir, Carey describes her mother as a neglectful parent, and says that Patricia, who is white, fueled her childhood insecurities in many ways, such as not doing her mixed-race daughter’s hair. But she also credits her mother, a former opera singer who trained at Juilliard, for encouraging her to sing and pursue her talent.
In her memoir, Carey claims that her sister repeatedly put Mariah in dangerous situations, including giving her drugs when she was 12 years old.
Carey’s mother reportedly moved into a senior living facility in West Palm Beach, Florida in 2020. A year later, Carey sold the Westchester County, New York, home she had bought for her mother in the 1990s.
