Mariah Carey confirms mother and sister died on the same day (exclusive)

As PEOPLE can confirm, Mariah Carey’s mother Patricia and sister Alison died on the same day over the weekend.

“I am heartbroken to have lost my mother this past weekend. Unfortunately, in a tragic turn of events, my sister also passed away that same day,” the 55-year-old Grammy winner said in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE.

“I feel blessed to have been able to spend the last week with my mother before she passed away,” Mariah adds. “I am grateful for everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time.”

Further details, including the cause of death of Patricia and Alison, are currently unknown.

Patricia, who was previously married to Alfred Roy Carey, was a Juilliard-trained opera singer and voice teacher before the couple welcomed Alison, Mariah and son Morgan. The parents later divorced when the “Hero” singer was three years old.

Mariah’s relationship with her mother, from whom she inherited her singing talent, has been complicated throughout her life.

“Like many aspects of my life, my journey with my mother was full of contradictions and competing realities. It was never just black and white – it was a whole rainbow of emotions,” she wrote in her 2020 memoir. The meaning of Mariah Carey.

“Our relationship is a prickly rope of pride, pain, shame, gratitude, jealousy, admiration and disappointment,” Mariah continued in the book. “A complicated love connects my heart to my mother’s.”

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Despite her ups and downs, Mariah maintained a relationship with her mother. In 2010, they appeared on ABC’s Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas Special and performed a celebratory mother-daughter duet of “O Come All Ye Faithful/Hallelujah Chorus.”

Mariah also dedicated part of her memoir to Patricia. “And Pat, my mother, who, despite everything, I think did the best she could,” she wrote. “I will always love you as much as I can.”

Mariah’s relationship with Alison was also quite complex. The star wrote in his memoir that, at least at that time, it was “emotionally and physically safer for me to have no contact” with her or Morgan.