Pop star Mariah Carey has issued a statement after suffering a shock double family tragedy.
“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 55-year-old shared in a statement to People.
“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.”
Carey did not share details of the cause of the deaths.
While Carey had a complicated relationship with her mother, the star did pay tribute to her in her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey.
“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.
Carey also reportedly had an estranged relationship with her older sister Alison, 63, with the star previously writing in her memoir that it was “emotionally and physically safer for me to not have any contact,” with her siblings.
Carey’s mother was a trained opera singer.
In a 2022 interview with Gayle King, Carey credited her mother, who previously trained as an opera singer, with”exposing me to music,” however, her childhood was not without its challenges.
“There was a distinct shift: she made me feel like the competition, like a threat. In place of our previous bond grew a different tie, a rope tethering us through shared biology and social obligation,” Carey wrote in her memoir.
“Having people you love be jealous of you professionally 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.”
