Following Mariah Carey’s heartbreaking announcement that both her mother, Patricia, and her sister, Alison, passed away on the same day over the weekend, a closer look has been taken at Alison’s life.
In a statement to People on Monday, the 55-year-old singer said, “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.” Alison was 63, and Patricia was 87, though the causes of their deaths were not immediately disclosed.
Mariah Carey’s mother & sister pass away on same day
Mariah expressed gratitude for having been able to spend the last week with her mother before her passing. She also thanked everyone for their support and asked for privacy during this difficult time.
Alison was Mariah’s older sister and the middle child of Patricia and Alfred Carey, an opera singer who died at 72 in 2002. The couple, who also had a son named Morgan Carey, 64, were married from 1960 until their separation in 1973, when Mariah was three years old.
In her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the singer revealed that after years of therapy, she decided to cut ties with both Alison and Morgan. She explained, “For my sanity and peace of mind, my therapist encouraged me to rename and reframe my family… Morgan became my ex-brother, and Alison my ex-sister… I had to stop expecting them to become the big brother and big sister I had always imagined.”
Mariah added that distancing herself from them was necessary for her emotional and physical well-being.
When Mariah Carey accused Alison of trying to introduce her to drugs
In her memoir, Mariah accused Alison of trying to introduce her to drugs and causing her severe harm as a child, including third-degree burns that affected her development. Mariah also recounted a traumatic incident from when she was 12 years old, alleging that Alison drugged her with Valium, offered her cocaine, and tried to sell her to a pimp.
During a September 2020 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Mariah described Alison as “troubled and traumatized” due to their difficult upbringing. She reflected on feeling like an outsider in her own family, noting that by the time she was born, her siblings had already experienced significant damage.
When Alison filed $1.25 million lawsuit against sister Mariah Carey
In 2021, Alison filed a $1.25 million lawsuit against Mariah following the release of the memoir, denying the “outrageous claims” made in a chapter titled Dandelion Tea. Alison accused Mariah of using her public status to attack her “penniless sister,” generating sensational headlines to promote the book’s sales.
Alison’s lawsuit claimed that Mariah’s “cruel and outrageous allegations” caused her immense emotional distress, exacerbating her struggles with trauma from her childhood and leading to a relapse into alcohol abuse.
She also revealed that she had been living with HIV since 1990 and suffered from a brain injury after a violent home invasion in 2015, which impacted her vision and short-term memory. Additionally, Alison had faced multiple arrests related to prostitution over the years, which she had engaged in sporadically since the early 1980s to support her drug addiction.
