Mariah Carey’s estranged sister Alison hoped she could still repair her fractured relationship with her younger brother, the megastar, as she lay dying on her deathbed.
David Baker, a friend and Alison’s healthcare representative, told DailyMail.com that family members were aware that Alison had been receiving hospice care for the past month at her apartment in the small town of Coxsackie, New York, just 24 miles south of Albany.
However, the ‘Vision of Love’ singer never called to check on her dying sister, Baker said.
“Alison was hurt by the way her mother and Mariah treated her, but she always had mixed feelings about her mother,” Baker told DailyMail.com exclusively. “But I know her dying wish was to have been able to at least have a conversation with Mariah.”
On Monday, Mariah confirmed that her mother, Patricia and Alison have passed away.
“I am heartbroken to have lost my mother this past weekend,” Mariah said in a statement to People. “Sadly, in a tragic turn of events, my sister lost her life on the same day.”
Friends said Alison Carey’s dying wish was to be reunited with her superstar sister as her condition continued to deteriorate over the past month while she was in hospice care.
Mariah Carey fans have expressed their concern and grief for the singer, who announced the passing of her mother and sister on August 26, 2024.
She continued: “I feel blessed to have been able to spend the last week with my mother before she passed away. I appreciate everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time.”
Baker confirmed that Mariah never called Alison while she was in hospice care, but Alison’s four adult children visited her at her apartment in Coxsackie last month.
Mariah had been candid about her estrangement from her older sister, who had battled drug addiction for years.
In her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the singer called Alison her “ex-sister” and claimed that Alison tried to get her to use drugs and had “inflicted third-degree burns” on her when she was a preteen.
The ‘Vision of Love’ singer detailed her fractured relationship with her family in her 2020 memoir
“When I was 12, my sister drugged me with Valium, offered me a pinky nail full of cocaine… and tried to sell me to a pimp,” Mariah wrote in her memoir. “Something in me stopped because of all that trauma. That’s why I often say, ‘I’m eternally 12.’ I’m still struggling to get over that moment.”
Mariah said she ultimately made the decision to cut Alison out of her life so she wouldn’t be “an enabler.”
The estrangement was extremely painful for Alison, Baker said.
“I was hurt that Mariah called Alison her ex-sister,” Alison’s friend told DailyMail.com. “She used to look after Mariah and take care of her. When it came out, I couldn’t believe Mariah had done that because she wasn’t talking to her anymore, but then she kicked Alison in the teeth while she was already on the ground.”
Alison was a recovering drug addict who had worked as a prostitute in New York to make ends meet. In 1990, she was diagnosed with HIV, although Baker doubts that diagnosis was accurate.
Alison continued her spiral and was arrested in 2016 in Saugerties, New York, for alleged prostitution.
Alison Carey has been open about her struggles with addiction, but friends said the 63-year-old had been sober for at least three years. Carey, pictured above in a courtroom in Saugerties, New York, on August 31, 2016, was arrested for prostitution.
On Tuesday, Baker confirmed to DailyMail.com that Alison did not die of cancer or HIV. He did not reveal the exact cause of death, but said Alison passed away early Saturday morning due to “internal organ failure.”
Baker said she found Alison unresponsive around midnight on Saturday. A nurse was called, who confirmed the 63-year-old woman had died.
“She was taking medication to make herself comfortable and there was no indication that she was in distress or in pain,” Baker said.
The friend said Alison’s four children visited her a few weeks before she passed away.
In a heartbreaking 2016 interview with DailyMail.com, Alison made an impassioned plea to her famous sister, begging for financial support as she battled health problems following a devastating 2015 home invasion attack that left her with brain damage.
Since that attack, Alison had been in and out of the hospital.
Alison Carey had begged her sister for help, but also sued her for defamation over the singer’s 2020 memoir.
“Mariah, I love you, I desperately need your help,” he told Mariah in the 2016 interview. “Please don’t leave me like that.”
Baker, who had been Alison’s health care advocate and representative for the past nine years, said the 63-year-old has been sober for more than three years, but her health continued to deteriorate.
Before getting her apartment in a small town in upstate New York, Alison was staying at a physical rehabilitation center.
Alison often wondered if her famous sister would ever reach out to her as she clung to the final weeks of her life. Baker said her nine-year-old friend was barely conscious for the last two weeks before she passed away on Saturday.
Baker criticized the singer and the prepared statement that was released after the deaths of the two women.
“It was horrible because everything revolved around her,” Baker said. “In his eyes, everything revolves around Mariah and never anyone else.”
Mariah Carey said she was with her mother Patricia during the period of weakness leading up to her death over the weekend.
“If he cared about her, he would have talked to Alison when he heard she was dying. Mariah has been like this for a long time. She’ll do anything to get attention and is always looking for publicity.”
Mariah was also estranged from her opera singer mother at one point.
The ‘Honey’ singer wrote in her memoir that her mother’s jealousy over her successful career may have caused a lot of friction in their relationship.
“(Those jealousies) are part of success, but when the person is your mother and the jealousy is revealed at such a tender age, it is particularly painful,” she wrote about Patricia.
Carey’s mother was reportedly living in a senior care facility in West Palm Beach after Mariah sold her mother’s home in Westchester County, New York, which she had purchased for her in the 1990s.
Although they had a rocky relationship, Mariah and Juliard-trained opera singer Patricia appeared in Christmas specials with their famous daughter.
Mariah detailed her complicated relationship with her opera singer mother, Patricia Mar, in her 2020 memoir, writing: ‘A complicated love binds my heart to my mother’s.’
Meanwhile, Mariah remained estranged from her siblings.
Both Alison and Mariah’s older brother Morgan, 64, had previously taken legal action against their younger sister over what they claimed were “cruel and outrageous allegations” made in her book.
In a March 2016 interview with DailyMail.com, Morgan said that Alison inherited $1.6 million from her father Alfred Carey when he died in 2002.
A trust had been set up for Alison’s children, but Alison continued to struggle with mounting medical bills.
The rest of the money he has squandered on his drug addiction, Morgan said.
Mariah Carey and her older brother, Morgan, photographed at the American Music Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles in December 1990.
Baker said Alison was honest about her struggles, but still hoped she could one day make amends with her family, especially Mariah.
“(Alison) was a very intelligent and very sensitive person who went through a very difficult time in her life,” Baker said. “She had a lot of obstacles in her life from a very young age, and I don’t think most people can go through something like that and not be affected by it.
‘(Mariah) called her an ex-sister, which was a nasty thing to say and (Alison) never got over it. She kept dismissing her, as if there was anything she could do to change that. No matter what, she’ll always be her sister.’
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