Mariah Carey is in mourning. The singer lost her mother and sister within a short time of each other. “I am heartbroken by the loss of my mother this past weekend,” the singer of the famous song “All I Want for Christmas Is You” announced in a statement sent to several American media outlets including CNN on Monday, August 26. She continued: “Unfortunately, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life on the same day.”
“I appreciate everyone’s love and support”
The 55-year-old artist added that she “felt blessed to have been able to spend the last week with (her) mother before she passed away,” without giving further details on the circumstances of this tragedy. “I appreciate everyone’s love and support and the respect for my privacy during this impossible time,” she said.
The pop star’s mother, Patricia Carey, 87, was an opera singer and voice teacher. In her 2020 memoir, Mariah Carey describes having a “complicated” relationship with her mother for a long time. Despite everything, the singer made a point of dedicating her book to her. “And to Pat, my mother, who, despite everything, I think, really did the best she could. I will always love you the best I can,” she wrote in “The Mariah Carey Truth.”
“Complicated” relationships
In the same book, the singer, who was only three years old when her parents separated, described their relationship as “a thorny mixture of pride, pain, shame, gratitude, jealousy, admiration and disappointment.”
With her sister, too, the relationship has been tumultuous. Alison Carey, eight years her senior, sued Mariah Carey after the publication of her memoir, which she said left her in “emotional distress.” According to the complaint, her younger sister used her book as a way to “humiliate and embarrass” her. In 2020, on Oprah Winfrey’s show, Mariah Carey referred to Alison as her “ex-sister,” calling her “troubled” and “traumatized.”
Mariah’s only surviving close family member is her brother, Morgan Carey. Her father, Alfred Roy, died in 2002.
