Singer Mariah Carey is reportedly being sued by her older sister Alison, who says the singer’s 2020 memoir ‘The Meaning of Mariah Carey’ has caused her distress.
Alison, 59, seeks $1.25 million for “the infliction of immense emotional distress caused by defendant’s heartless, vicious, vindictive, despicable and totally unnecessary public humiliation of defendant’s already profoundly damaged older sister,” according to a court summons, Variety reported.
Carey’s book, which released in September 2020, offers insight into the legendary singer’s turbulent childhood, abusive relationships and rise to stardom.
It also chronicles a fraught relationship with her sister.
Alison’s lawsuit refers to a part of the book that claims she gave a 12-year-old Carey Valium to “pimp her out and threw a cup of boiling hot tea on her” — which the sister denied.
The suit added that Carey, 50, “callously dismisses plaintiff as her ‘ex’ sister. But instead of saying no more than that, defendant used her book to humiliate and embarrass plaintiff as stories about the memoir appeared in newspapers around the world, on TV and across the Internet, most of them with headlines repeating defendant’s allegations — all of them published without giving plaintiff any opportunity to respond.”
The court document also claims that Alison has been dealing with trauma from her childhood and has taken to alcohol abuse again.
“In stories published several weeks prior to the release of her book, defendant was quoted as saying plaintiff is ‘damaged’ and ‘very broken.’ But despite that, defendant user her status as a public figure to attack her penniless sister, generating sensational headlines describing her lurid claims to promote sales of her book,” the claim said. “Defendant’s cruel and outrageous allegations have devastated the plaintiff. Already struggling with the unspeakable trauma of her childhood and having her own children abandon her, she has become severely depressed and uncharacteristically tearful since the publication of defendant’s book and now struggles, after a long time clean, with alcohol abuse.”
