MARIAH Carey reflected on her complicated relationships with her siblings years before sister Alison Carey’s tragic death.
On Monday, Mariah, 55, announced that her mother Patricia Carey, 87, and Alison, 63, had died on the same day in “a tragic turn of events” over the past weekend.
“My heart is broken that I’ve lost my mother this past weekend,” the Grammy-winning artist said, in a statement to People. “Sadly, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life on the same day.”
Mariah has previously opened up about her childhood and the turmoil in her relationships with Alison and brother Morgan Carey in her memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey.
In the book, the pop sensation admitted that it was “emotionally and physically safer for me not to have any contact” with Alison or Morgan, following years of conflict and trauma.
During an interview with Oprah Winfrey for her Apple TV+ series The Oprah Conversation in 2020, Mariah claimed Morgan was “extremely violent” and that Alison was “troubled” and “traumatized” growing up.
“I tried to be thoughtful about that, although, I don’t know that the same courtesy has been extended to me from anybody that caused certain traumatic events in my life,” she told Oprah.
In her memoir, Mariah wrote, “When I was 12 years old, my sister drugged me with valium, offered me a pinky nail full of cocaine, inflicted me with third-degree burns, and tried to sell me out to a pimp.”
When asked what she thought the source of her siblings’ pain was, Mariah told Oprah, “They have always thought that my life was easy.”
The singer explained, “They just grew up with the experience of living with a Black father and a white mother together as a family and I was for the most part living with my mother, which they saw as easier, but in reality it was not.”
Both Alison and Morgan denied the accusations and filed separate lawsuits against Mariah after the book was published.
Alison sued Mariah for $1.2 million in February 2021, seeking damages for the “immense emotional distress” and “totally unnecessary public humiliation” over her estranged younger sister’s abuse claims.
Morgan said he suffered “extreme mental anguish” and “serious damage to his reputation” in his defamation lawsuit, seeking unspecified damages over the publication of the memoir.
Four years before Alison’s death, Mariah described her “deeply wounded” older sister as “the most brilliant and broken person I have ever known” in the book.
The Emotions singer wrote that Alison, who was eight years her senior, saw “things a child should never see”, adding that these painful experiences growing up “damaged and derailed her girlhood.”
“She was fully aware when the family unit unraveled and our parents turned on each other; she absorbed the full pain of a family coming undone,” Mariah added.
On August 26, 2024, Mariah Carey revealed to People that her mom Patricia and sister Alison died on the same day.
“My heart is broken that I’ve lost my mother this past weekend,” she started.
“Sadly, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life on the same day.
“I feel blessed that I was able to spend the last week with my mom before she passed.”
“I appreciate everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time,” she concluded.
Their parents Patricia and Alfred Roy Carey, who died in 2002, got divorced when Mariah was three.
Elsewhere in The Meaning of Mariah Carey, she remembered Alison as being “extremely intelligent and curious”, writing, “I was told she brought home good grades, got into good schools, and loved music too.”
While Alison’s cause of death is yet to be released, Alison’s close friend and carer Dave Baker told The U.S. Sun that she was on “home hospice care for the last three weeks of her life.”
He also revealed that Alison had “had a problem with internal organs.”
Paying tribute to her, Dave added, “Beneath a tough exterior Alison was a highly intelligent, warm, and sensitive person.
“I have known her for nine years and as her friend and in recent months her carer I will miss her greatly.”
Elsewhere in her memoir, Mariah shed some light on how her relationship with her mother, opera singer Patricia, changed over the years.
She described their bond as a “prickly rope of pride, pain, shame, gratitude, jealousy, admiration, and disappointment.”
“A complicated love tethers my heart to my mother’s,” she added.
In the book, Mariah recalled nearly drowning during a trip to the beach when she was seven, adding she felt neglected by Patricia despite her “hysterical” cries for help.
Over the years, Mariah and Patricia would reconcile with each other, with the latter making a special appearance during Mariah’s ABC special, Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas To You.
The mother-daughter duo performed a soulful rendition of O Come All Ye Faithful during the 2010 program.
Dedicating her memoir in part to Patricia, Mariah wrote, “And to Pat, my mother, who, through it all, I do believe actually did the best she could.
“I will love you the best I can, always.”
In her statement announcing her mother and sister’s deaths, Mariah said she felt “blessed that I was able to spent the last week with my mom before she passed.”
