Ella Scott
Mariah Carey made a vow to her mother before she died, despite them experiencing a ‘painful’ relationship fraught with ‘disappointment’.
Five-time Grammy Award winner Mariah, 55, announced on Monday (August 26) that her mum, Patricia Carey, had died at the age of 87.
In a devastating statement, she also revealed her elder sister Alison had died on the same day, aged 63.
“My heart is broken that I’ve lost my mother this past weekend. Sadly, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life on the same day,” the US singer told People.
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"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.”
The cause of Patricia and Alison’s deaths has yet to be revealed.
Over the years Carey has never shied away from documenting the ‘complicated’ relationship she shared with her mother, a former Julliard-trained opera singer.
In her 2020 memoir, The Meaning Of Mariah Carey, Carey described their bond as a ‘prickly rope of pride, pain, shame, gratitude, jealousy, admiration, and disappointment’.
“Like many aspects of my life, my journey with my mother has been full of contradictions and competing realities,” she explained. “It's never been only black-and-white — it's been a whole rainbow of emotions.”
She added that a ‘complicated love tethers [her] heart to [her] mother's’, but that their complex dynamic has caused her ‘so much pain and confusion over the years’.
Moreover, Mariah accused the mezzo-soprano of being jealous of her stardom, writing: “[Jealousy] comes with the territory of success, but when the person is your mother and the jealousy is revealed at such a tender age, it's particularly painful.”
However, she also offered her mother an olive branch by part-dedicating The Meaning of Mariah Carey to her and vowing to ‘love’ her always.
“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,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, she stated elsewhere in the bestselling book that she believed it was ‘emotionally and physically safer for [her] not to have any contact’ with her sister Alison or her brother Morgan, 64.
Following the memoir’s publication, Alison took offence to various allegations her younger sibling had made about her.
Alison accused Mariah of intentional infliction of emotional distress and launched a lawsuit demanding $1.25 million in damages in 2021.
In Touch Weekly reports that the case never went anywhere after the initial filing.