All About Mariah Carey's Parents, Alfred Roy Carey and Patricia Carey

Mariah Carey's mom, opera singer Patricia Carey, gave her singing lessons

Mariah Carey has experienced a lot of ups and downs with her parents, Alfred Roy Carey and Patricia Carey.

The Grammy winner opened up about her complicated relationship with her family in her candid 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey. The book delved into her upbringing, her recollections of what she called “significant neglect” and her struggle to come to terms with her biracial identity.

The youngest of three children, the “Obsessed” singer was born to Alfred, an Afro-Venezuelan aeronautical engineer, and Patricia, a White opera singer, on March 27, 1969, in Huntington, N.Y.

The couple’s interracial marriage was the source of a huge rift between Patricia and her own mother. It also caused trouble for the family in their neighborhood; in a 1999 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Patricia shared that they were targets of racial discrimination and violent attacks.

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After meeting Alfred, Patricia set aside her career to start a family, welcoming daughter Alison Carey and son Morgan Carey before giving birth to Mariah.

When the singer was 3, her parents divorced and she moved in with her mother, who maintained primary custody over her. In her memoir, the “We Belong Together” singer recalled her childhood with Patricia, writing that their bond “has caused me so much pain and confusion.”

While working through her family trauma in therapy, Mariah found peace in redefining her relationships with them.

"For my sanity and peace of mind, my therapist encouraged me to literally rename and reframe my family,” she wrote. “My mother became Pat to me, Morgan my ex-brother and Alison my ex-sister ... I had to stop expecting them to one day miraculously become the mommy, big brother and big sister I fantasized about.”

Throughout her childhood, Mariah only saw her father on weekends and their relationship grew increasingly frayed as her career took off. On July 4, 2002, Alfred died of a rare form of cancer — the father-daughter pair mended their relationship before his death.

Here’s everything to know about Mariah Carey’s parents, Alfred Roy Carey and Patricia Carey.

Mariah has a “complicated” relationship with her mother

Mariah’s relationship with her mom, Patricia, was fraught from a young age — their tumultuous bond has been the source of “a cloud of sadness” throughout Mariah's life, she wrote in her book.

“Ours is a story of betrayal and beauty. Of love and abandonment. Of sacrifice and survival,” Mariah wrote. “I’ve emancipated myself from bondage several times, but there is a cloud of sadness that I suspect will always hang over me, not simply because of my mother but because of our complicated journey together.”

Mariah didn’t shy away from writing candidly about their ups and downs in her 2020 book. "Like many aspects of my life, my journey with my mother has been full of contradictions and competing realities. It's never been only black-and-white — it's been a whole rainbow of emotions," she wrote.

The Billboard Music Award winner described their bond as multifaceted: "Our relationship is a prickly rope of pride, pain, shame, gratitude, jealousy, admiration and disappointment. A complicated love tethers my heart to my mother's."

Alfred was in the military

Alfred was born on Oct. 23, 1929, in New York City. Growing up in a difficult environment, he strove for opportunities and freedoms that his own parents had been denied, Mariah wrote in her memoir.

Once he was of age, he enlisted in the military. “My father craved discipline, culture and freedom, so he joined the military — a logical choice for a man who’d had no say over the time or skin into which he was born,” she explained.

Patricia was disowned by her family for marrying Alfred

To understand her relationship with her mother, Mariah examined Patricia’s complicated dynamic with her own mother, Ann Hickey, in her memoir. In 1960, Patricia married Alfred and Ann disowned her for having a relationship with a Black man.

On the rare occasion that Patricia visited her mom and extended family, Ann instructed Patricia to lie about her marriage, she said on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1999. Throughout her relationship with Alfred, the couple encountered frequent discrimination. After moving into a “more affluent area,” the tensions were worse than ever, Patricia recalled.

“One of our dogs was poisoned,” she told Winfrey, adding that their family was repeatedly targeted — on one occasion, Patricia said someone shot a bullet through their living room window.

Mariah grew up spending weekends with Alfred

After his time in the military and his divorce from Patricia, Alfred moved to Brooklyn Heights, where he was something of a “hipster,” Mariah wrote in her memoir. At the time, he drove a classic Porsche Speedster, his biggest luxury. She eagerly awaited their weekly Sunday visits, which always revolved around a big Italian feast he’d spend the full day preparing.

However, as Mariah’s career took off, her weekly visits with her father became fewer and farther between. “Music, as a career, was not logical to him,” she wrote. Their weekly dates became more “sporadic” as she focused her energy on her budding career at just 12 years old.

“Gradually, ‘next Sunday’ turned into a month of Sundays. I had to let go of our Sundays so I could manifest my own day in the sun,” she said.

Alfred died of cancer in 2002

On July 4, 2002, Alfred died after contracting a rare form of bile duct cancer. In the months leading up to his death, he and the “Hero” singer mended their relationship, she shared in her memoir.

In the years since, Mariah has honored his legacy in a variety of ways; shortly after he died, she penned an emotional tribute to him for her album Charmbracelet.

In “Sunflowers for Alfred Roy,” Mariah sings about finding forgiveness and peace in their relationship: “Please be at peace father / I'm at peace with you / Bitterness isn't worth clinging to / After all the anguish we've all been through.”

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Two decades later, the pop star restored her late father’s vintage sports car in honor of his birthday.

“The car you never got to finish is lovingly restored, complete with your spirit and my children.. Sorry I never told you, all I wanted to say🌻👐🏾❤️,” she wrote on Instagram alongside photos of herself and her twins, Monroe and Moroccan, posing in the newly refurbished car.

Mariah inherited her mom’s musical talent

When it comes to Mariah’s pitch-perfect pipes, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree: Her mom, Patricia, is a Juilliard-trained opera singer and vocal coach.

Mariah focused on singing and songwriting at a young age, using music as a distraction from her difficult home life. As the “Butterfly” singer honed her talents, she noticed her mother seemed jealous, writing, "Having people you love be jealous of you professionally 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 particularly painful.”

In her memoir, Mariah also described a poignant memory of singing with her mom in the car. “You should only hope that one day you become half the singer I am," Patricia allegedly told the teenager.

″Still, to this day, what she said haunts and hurts me,” Mariah recalled.

Mariah and Patricia dueted on a holiday album

Years later, the pair sang together on a momentous occasion: In 2010, Patricia joined the “Queen of Christmas” onstage for a festive mother-daughter duet during Mariah’s ABC special Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas to You.

Accompanied by a gospel choir, they sang “O Come All Ye Faithful/Hallelujah Chorus,” a song they recorded for Mariah’s holiday album. Patricia showed off her operatic range and the pop star belted out the high notes.

Mariah and Patricia maintain “boundaries” in their relationship

Despite all of their ups and downs, Mariah maintains a relationship with her mother, for whom she has “reserved some room in my heart.”

The BRIT Award winner dedicated her memoir to her kids, her ancestors and her mother. “And to Pat, my mother, who, through it all, I do believe actually did the best she could,” she wrote. “I will love you the best I can, always.”

Mariah's childhood inspired her 2022 kids' book The Christmas Princess

In 2022, Mariah released her first children's book, The Christmas Princess. The picture book centers on 12-year-old Little Mariah, "who doesn't have much and doesn't want a lot" except for "a peaceful and joyous holiday season," according to the book's description.

While The Christmas Princess isn't biographical — "It's a fairytale," Mariah told PEOPLE — it does parallel the chart-topping singer's life. Like the main character, Mariah was 12 years old when she learned tough but valuable life lessons. Little Mariah's mother is also named La Diva.

"That's the age when I learned I was definitely 'other,' " she told PEOPLE in 2022. "It would've been great to actually be a chameleon, but I didn't have the tools for it. Meaning we didn't have money."

"Writing saved me," Mariah said of composing music and poems to process her feelings.

As for Little Mariah, "Her music rescues her," Mariah added. "It's not a Prince Charming who comes in. She saves her own day."

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