Fans shower grieving Mariah Carey with support hours after she revealed her opera singer mom and older sister died on the same day
Tributes have poured in for grieving megastar Mariah Carey after her mother and older sister died within hours of each other last weekend.
The 55-year-old Hero singer announced Monday that her sister Alison, 63, and mother Patricia, 87, died within hours of each other over the weekend. In a statement, she said:
‘I am heartbroken that I lost my mother this past weekend. Sadly, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life on the same day.
“I feel blessed to have been able to spend the last week with my mother before she passed. I appreciate everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time.”
Since then, her countless fans have showered her with congratulations and condolences.
One fan said on X, referring to the collective name her admirers use for themselves: ‘May peace be upon you today and in the future Mimi. You are loved and the Lambily are always there!’
The 55-year-old Hero singer announced Monday that her sister Alison, 63, and her mother Patricia, 87, died within hours of each other over the weekend (Patricia and Mariah pictured in 2010 at a venue in LA)
Mariah and Alison (pictured at Mariah’s 1993 wedding to music producer Tommy Mottola) were no longer close toward the end of Alison’s life
Carey’s fans call themselves the Lambily, a portmanteau of “lamb” and “family.”
Carey consistently referred to her fans as “Lambs.”
Another Lamb said on X ‘hugs from the lambs and you will be in my prayers’, while a third said: ‘We love you Queen Mariah Carey!!! The singers of the singer… May your mother and sister rest in peace.
They then added a quote from her 2008 song Bye Bye: “It’s hard to accept that you’re gone forever.”
@lipsdontliepop said on X: ‘Deepest condolences to Mariah Carey on this unimaginable loss. May she find strength in her memories and peace in their love.’
The social media user added a quote from Carey’s song Hero: “So when you feel like hope is gone, look inside yourself and be strong.”
Alison was 63 when she died, Patricia was 87. The cause of death is not yet fully clear.
Alison and Mariah, pictured in an undated photo, were estranged for years
Mariah said she felt “blessed” to be able to spend “the last week” with her mother before she passed away.
She added: “I appreciate everyone’s love, support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time.”
Alison was Mariah’s older sister and the middle child of the late Patricia and opera singer Alfred Carey (who died in 2002 at age 72). The former couple, also parents of son Morgan Carey, 64, were married from 1960 to 1973 and separated when Mariah was 3.
Mariah revealed in her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, that after extensive therapy, she decided to cut off contact with both Alison and Morgan.
“For the sake of my sanity and peace of mind, my therapist encouraged me to literally rename and restructure my family…Morgan, my ex-brother, and Alison, my ex-sister…I had to stop expecting them to one day miraculously become the…big brother and big sister I fantasized about,” she wrote.
Mariah added: “I had to stop making myself available to be hurt by them. It’s been helpful. I have no doubt that it’s emotionally and physically safer for me to not have contact with my ex-brother and ex-sister.”
Carey with daughter Monroe and her mother Patricia
Alison was arrested in Saugerties, New York in 2016 for alleged prostitution
In the book, Mariah claimed that Alison tried to get her to do drugs and gave her “a heart attack.” [her] with third-degree burns when she was a pre-teen, which affected her further development.
“When I was 12, my sister gave me Valium, gave me a pinky nail full of cocaine … and tried to sell me to a pimp,” Mariah said. “Something inside me was arrested by all that trauma. That’s why I often say, ‘I’m forever 12.’ I still struggle with that time.”
In a September 2020 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Mariah described Alison as “troubled and traumatized” by their upbringing.
The Someday singer recalled: “We don’t even really know each other, and that’s the thing. We didn’t grow up together, but we were together. They were on a journey, by the time I came into the world, they were already damaged, in my opinion.
“But again, I wasn’t there. I was dropped into this world and I literally felt like an outsider among my own family.”
According to a 2015 report in the New York Post, Alison was a mother of four. She was first pregnant at age 15 and had another child in 1988. She had two more children in 2002, the newspaper reported.