American singer Mariah Carey is devastated after her mother Patricia and sister Alison died on the same day at the weekend.

As the well-known singer said in her statement yesterday Monday, “My heart is broken that I lost my mother last weekend. Unfortunately, in a tragic turn of events, my sister passed away that same day.”

The Grammy-winning singer said she felt blessed to have spent time with her mother in the week before her death and asked for privacy. No further details were given on the cause of death.

Her mother, Patricia, 87, was a former opera singer and vocal coach of Irish-American descent. In Carey’s 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the five-time Grammy-winning singer detailed her complicated relationship with her mother, saying it had caused her “so much pain and confusion.”

The 55-year-old had revealed that there was intense competition between them. Professional 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 especially painful,” he added.

But she had also spoken of her deep love for her mother, writing in the dedication: “To Pat, my mother, who, through it all, I believe actually did the best she could. I will love you as best as I can, always.”

In an interview with Gayle King in 2022, the singer said she was “definitely” influenced by her mother’s criticism growing up. She added that she always credits her mother with her exposure to music.

Carey’s relationship with her older sister Alison, 63, was also complicated.

In her memoir, she wrote that she was estranged from her and her brother Morgan, saying it was “emotionally and physically safer for me to have no contact.”

Alison sued Carrey for $1.2m (£909,780) after the memoir was released for “immense emotional distress”, calling what she said “vindictive”.

Carrie’s father, Alfred, died in 2002 of cancer at the age of 72.