Legendary Grammy-winning singer Mariah Carey recently opened up about working on her upcoming album, Here for It All, and dealing with the deaths of her mother and estranged sister during that period.
Here for It All is Carey’s 16th studio album and her first in seven years. The album is said to embody Carey’s emotions as she journeyed through the deaths of her mother and sister.
As previously reported by Face2Face Africa, Carey, 56, in an August 2024 statement, revealed that her mom, Patricia Carey, and her estranged sister, Alison, passed away on the same day. Carey’s mother was an Opera singer.
“I don’t know how I processed it. I just know that it was extremely difficult for me to navigate,” Carey told Gayle King for CBS Mornings, per CBS News. “It was tough because I have always had an interesting relationship with my mother.”
Carey, in her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, touched on her relationship with her mother, explaining that it was “complicated.” But the All I Want For Christmas Is You singer told King that she found some solace after she interacted with her mom before she passed.
“Towards the end, I was with her the whole time,” Carey revealed. “She said a couple of things to me that were very healing for what I needed. And I felt that that was the right thing to do.”
But the relationship between Carey and her sister was reportedly far from mutual. “My sister, I hadn’t seen in years, and I feel really badly about that as well,” Carey admitted.
“But that’s ’cause I tend to have a guilt complex about everything. But it’s tough. My sister had an extremely hard life.”
Carey was born to Patricia and Alfred Roy Carey – an aeronautical engineer. Her father, who died in 2002, was of African-American and Afro-Venezuelan heritage. In her memoir, Carey revealed that her family disowned her mother for marrying a Black man. Her parents divorced when she was 3.
Elsewhere in the interview, Carey touched on working with fellow musician Anderson .Paak on Here for It All. The 39-year-old singer and rapper features heavily on the album, CBS News reported.
“I reached out to him. He’s brilliant,” she said about .Paak. “He’s really a great artist.”
Carey and .Paak are also rumored to be romantically involved, but the pair have been coy about their relationship.
“He just likes to hold my hand. He just grabs my hand. I don’t know what he’s doing,” Carey said on a lighter note, naming the two of them as “the handholding club.”
The 56-year-old was also asked about .Paak hanging out with her during last year’s Christmas holidays.
“Well, they better know that it’s something special. It’s Christmas. He enjoyed it. I did. There’s a hot tub there. It was nice,” Carey said.
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