Mariah Carey had a complicated relationship with her siblings before her sister Alison passed away in August 2024.

The “Obsessed” singer was the youngest of three children born to Patricia and Alfred Carey. The former couple first welcomed Mariah’s brother Morgan in 1960 and sister Alison in 1963 before having Mariah on March 27, 1969.

Mariah wrote about her volatile relationship with her siblings in her 2020 memoir The Meaning of Mariah CareyShe claimed that her sister was a drug addict and that her brother had physical fights with his parents.

On August 26, Mariah shared with PEOPLE in a statement that her mother and sister had passed away on the same day.

“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,” the Grammy-winning singer said.

From their troubled childhood relationship to Mariah’s grief over the death of her sister, here’s everything you need to know about Mariah Carey’s siblings.

They grew up on Long Island, New York

Mariah was born in 1969, nine years after Morgan and six years after Alison, in Long Island, New York. The siblings’ parents separated when Mariah was 3 years old. Mariah subsequently lived primarily with her mother, who was Irish-American, while her father was Afro-Venezuelan.

After publishing her memoir in 2020, Mariah joined Oprah Winfrey The Oprah Conversation, in which she spoke more candidly about her traumatic childhood and how she felt isolated from her siblings growing up.

“We don’t really know each other … we didn’t grow up together, but we did. They were on a journey, by the time I came into the world, they were already damaged, in my opinion,” she said. “But again, I wasn’t there. I was dropped into this world and I literally felt like an outsider in my own family.”

Mariah added that she thinks her siblings saw her life as “easier” because they grew up with a white mother and a black father, while she grew up primarily with her mother.

Mariah claimed her sister struggled with drug addiction

In her book, Mariah reflected on her turbulent relationship with Alison, writing that her sister was “deeply wounded” but also “the most brilliant and broken person I have ever known.”

She described how Alison “saw things a child should never see” before Mariah was born and it touched her deeply.

“I do know that what she went through damaged and derailed her childhood,” the award-winning singer wrote. “She was fully aware as the family bond fell apart and our parents turned on each other; she absorbed the full pain of a family falling apart.”

Mariah also claimed that Alison struggled with drug abuse and that she forced drugs on her as a child.

“My sister gave me Valium, gave me a pinky nail full of cocaine, gave me third-degree burns and tried to sell me to a pimp,” she wrote in the book.

Alison, a mother of two sons, denied the allegations and sued Mariah for $1.25 million shortly after the book’s publication in February 2021, alleging that the singer had intentionally caused her “emotional distress” by sharing stories that deliberately “demeaned” her.

“She is already struggling with the unspeakable trauma of her childhood and the fact that her own children abandoned her. Since the publication of the defendant’s book, she has become severely depressed and unusually tearful. Now, after being clean for a long time, she is struggling with alcohol abuse,” the document reads.

Mariah claimed that her brother got into fights with her parents when they were growing up

In her memoir, Mariah also describes her brother’s relationship with Patricia and Alfred. She writes that he could become violent at times.

She described an incident in which Morgan pushed her mother against a wall so hard that she fell to the floor unconscious.

“Suddenly there was a loud, sharp sound, like a real gunshot,” Mariah wrote. “My brother had pushed my mother with such force that her body hit the wall, making a loud cracking sound.”

She also wrote about an incident in which Morgan and Alfred got into such a heated argument that it took a dozen police officers to break up the fight.

Morgan sued Mariah for defamation after her memoir was published

A month after Alison filed a lawsuit against Mariah, Morgan did the same. In March 2021, he sued his youngest sister for defamation. He claimed that Mariah’s book cost him job opportunities and that she mischaracterized his behavior. The lawsuit is ongoing.

“Her attempt to falsely portray Plaintiff as being as violent as her father, and her subsequent commentary on police relations with Black people, was just the beginning of Defendant Mariah Carey’s desperate attempt to smear Plaintiff, play the victim card, and curry favor with the Black Lives Matter movement,” the complaint said, per Today in the US.

Three months later, Mariah responded to Morgan’s lawsuit with a new document, saying she wanted to “inspire” people with her brother’s story, rather than smear him.

“The story of Ms. Carey’s rise from a dysfunctional and at times abusive family environment has significant public value, particularly for any young person caught in similarly harsh and discouraging circumstances who could benefit from being inspired to use their talents to pursue their dreams,” the filing said, according to Page Six.

In July 2021, Morgan filed a sworn statement in Manhattan Supreme Court arguing that Mariah’s claim that she wanted to “inspire” others was “particularly ironic” given the content of her lyrics and her fame.

He added that if she really wanted to inspire, she should also have mentioned the struggles he had as a child with cerebral palsy, epilepsy and a two-inch leg deformity.

“This detail is conspicuously absent, making it clear that ‘inspiration’ was not on the agenda,” he wrote. “Mariah’s agenda was solely focused on selling books and her image, all at my expense, with no regard for the truth or my well-being during this global crisis.”

Morgan lives in Italy with his wife

According to his 2021 lawsuit, Morgan and his wife Ilaria moved to Italy in 2012, where they worked on two screenplays. At the time of the lawsuit, he was also writing “a permaculture-based fitness and lifestyle book.”

However, he alleged that Mariah’s “defamatory vitriol” was damaging to his and his wife’s careers, as “enthusiastic negotiations” over their scenario “were abruptly and without explanation terminated concurrently with Mariah’s vicious worldwide attack on my character and reputation.”

“The public humiliation caused by Mariah’s baseless and false attacks will forever color my professional and personal interactions,” he said.

Alison died on the same day as their mother

In August 2024, Mariah announced that her mother, with whom she also had a complicated relationship, and Alison had passed away on the same day.

“I feel blessed to have been able to spend the last week with my mother before she passed,” the singer said in a statement to PEOPLE. “I appreciate everyone’s love and support and respect for my privacy during this impossible time.”

No details were known at the time about their cause of death.