Mariah Carey paid a touching tribute to her late father Alfred Roy Carey on Monday on what would have been his 94th birthday.
The 53-year-old music sensation, who announced Christmas concert dates earlier this month, shared a photo of herself on Instagram with a heartfelt caption honoring her father.
In the snap, she smiled softly with a single sunflower in her hand as she looked out of the frame.
“Sunflowers for Alfred Roy. “I remember my dad on his birthday today,” she wrote under the snapshot.
Mariah looked beautiful with her sandy blonde locks pinned up while wearing a black sequined top.
On Her Mind: Mariah Carey paid a touching tribute to her late father Alfred Roy Carey on Monday on what would have been his 94th birthday
Her words: “Sunflowers for Alfred Roy. “I remember my dad on his birthday today,” she wrote under the snapshot
Her father died 21 years ago on July 4, 2002 at the age of 72 after battling cancer.
“My father longed for discipline, culture and freedom,” Carey wrote in her 2020 memoir “The Meaning of Mariah Carey.”
The singer described her father’s decision to join the military as “a logical choice for a man who had no control over the time or the skin he was born into.”
In the book, she recalled his “stern demeanor” and shared that his home was “part military barracks, part Shaolin monastery.”
“There was no room for extravagance or waste of any kind in his house,” she recalls. “He thought snacking was frivolous.” If I was hungry while waiting for dinner, he would give me a Ritz cracker. One.’
Roy Carey was an aeronautical engineer of African American and Venezuelan descent.
He married Mariah’s mother Patricia in 1960, but their racism-plagued marriage ended in divorce in 1973.
Patricia, a white woman, was disowned by her parents for marrying a black man, and racial tensions arose in Huntington, New York, where they lived.
Remembering: Mariah posted a birthday tribute to her father on Instagram after restoring his vintage sports car last year
Tribute: The Grammy-winning superstar beamed behind the wheel as she shared a series of photos showing the stunning restoration of her father’s red runabout
Relationship: After Mariah’s parents divorced when she was three, she only saw her father on Sundays
Mariah posted a birthday tribute to her father on Instagram after restoring his vintage sports car last year.
She shared photos of her and her children – fraternal twins Moroccan and Monroe, 12 – in the renovated vehicle and added a heartfelt caption.
“Happy birthday my father Alfred Roy Carey,” wrote the Hero singer. “The car you never got a chance to finish is lovingly restored, complete with your ghost and my children. ‘I’m sorry I never told you everything I wanted to say.’
The last line is a lyric to her 1995 single One Sweet Day, which she performed with Boyz II Men.