Pop icon Mariah Carey (55) lost both her mother Patricia (87) and sister Alison (63) over the weekend, she confirmed to People Magazine on Monday.
Carey has been open about having a complicated relationship with both her mother and sister.
– My journey with my mother has been full of contrasts and competing realities. It was never black and white – it has been a rainbow of emotions, she wrote in her 2020 memoirs.
Now she is grateful for the time she and her mother spent together in the last week.
DIFFICULT: In her autobiography, Mariah Carey talks about a very difficult family relationship – and how she still believes her mother did the best she could. Here is Patricia with her daughter Mariah and granddaughter Monroe on the Walk of Fame in 2015. Photo: Chris Pizzello / AP / NTB
– Tragic Turn
It is not known what caused the deaths of either her mother or sister. Regarding the incident, Carey stated:
– My heart is broken after losing my mother this weekend. Unfortunately, in what is a tragic turn of events, I lost my sister on the same day, says the singer in a statement.
However, it is known that the two sisters had a very difficult relationship, both through press statements from sister Alison and from older brother Morgan.
The problems were related to the sister’s addiction issues, and to money. While Carey is a bestselling pop icon and a superstar, her older sister has lived a life marked by addiction and becoming pregnant very early.
The relationship between the wealthy, world-famous singer and her two older siblings has been very challenging.
STAR: Mariah’s life took a completely different direction from that of her siblings Morgan and Allison. Here is Carey at a Christmas party with Barack Obama in 2015 when he was president. She is holding her daughter Monroe. Photo: SAUL LOEB / AP / NTB
Begged for Money
It was “emotionally and physically safer not to have any contact” with Alison, she writes.
After the book was published, Alison denied several of the events Carey describes from her childhood. She sued her sister, claiming the book made her relapse into addiction.
According to the Daily Mail, Mariah Carey has repeatedly funded treatment for her sister’s addiction.
Alison has also been living with HIV since 1990. She had four children, who according to her have cut ties with her after Carey’s book was published. Additionally, she has struggled with health issues after being subjected to violence in 2015, according to the New York Post.
When older brother Morgan publicly asked Mariah Carey for money for his sister’s health treatment in 2005, a representative for Mariah Carey responded:
– Over the years, Mariah has spent several hundred thousand dollars helping Alison and her children. She has supported her extended family for two decades.
It is also known that sister Alison inherited $1.6 million from father Alfred Carey, who died in 2002. According to the brother, Alison spent the money on drugs.
Brother Morgan shared a heartbreaking video of sister Alison in a hospital bed with Daily Mail and other newspapers, where she begs for forgiveness and more money. To the newspaper, he states that he himself would not give money to Alison, but that it is something else to pay those who care for her in the hospital.
Mariah Carey writes in her memoirs that she has to give up hope that Morgan and Alison will become the big brother and sister she dreamed of.
Morgan informs the newspaper that he hasn’t had a proper conversation with his sister Mariah in many years.
It is known that she and her mother have worked through a difficult relationship.
Inherited the Singing Voice
Patricia was an opera singer and previously married to Mariah Carey’s father Alfred Roy Carey. They had three children: Alison, Morgan, and Mariah. The couple divorced when Mariah was three years old.
JEALOUSY: Mariah Carey sang around the world, and with stars like Luciano Pavarotti, here in 1999. She inherited her mother’s singing voice but lived a completely different life. And had a complicated relationship with her mother, with jealousy being one of the ingredients. Photo: ANDREW MEDICHINI / AP / NTB
– Our relationship was a thorny bond of pride, pain, shame, gratitude, jealousy, admiration, and disappointment, she wrote in her memoirs, which are dedicated, among other things, to Patricia:
“To Pat, my mother, who I believe did the best she could through it all. I will love you as much as I can always.”
Contact with her mother continued throughout her life, and the two recorded a duet version of “O Come All Ye Faithful/Hallelujah Chorus” for the 55-year-old’s second Christmas album in 2010.
Carey has been open about how difficult her family relationships have been, and how she has come to terms with the relationships she succeeded in and those she could not maintain. Now she is experiencing great grief after the loss.
– I appreciate everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time, says Carey.