NEW YORK — A judge on Monday dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by Morgan Carey against his sister, superstar Mariah Carey, over claims that her 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, damaged his reputation.
Morgan Carey, who is 10 years older than his sister, filed the lawsuit in 2021. He argued that the book inaccurately depicted him as a violent drug dealer who had “been in the system.” His complaint maintained that he had never been violent and had no criminal record.
Judge Leslie Stroth dismissed the complaint, ruling that Morgan Carey had not demonstrated that his sister knew the statements she wrote were false or acted with reckless disregard for their truth. The judge concluded that his allegations did not meet the demanding legal standard for defamation involving matters of public interest.
The case had previously been narrowed in 2022, when Judge Barbara Jaffe dismissed 14 of the original 16 claims and eliminated all claims against the memoir’s publisher. However, Jaffe allowed allegations concerning claims that Mariah Carey’s brother had distributed cocaine in the 1980s and had “been in the system” to proceed.
Jaffe also determined that statements portraying Morgan Carey as abusive and alleging that he had accepted money to murder someone could potentially be defamatory. However, she found that he had not adequately established that those statements caused him damages.
Morgan Carey’s lawyers appealed the ruling, arguing that the trial court had failed to consider the statements in their full context. The decision was subsequently upheld.
Richard Roth, Morgan Carey’s attorney, said in an email that he intended to challenge the latest dismissal.
“In rendering its decision, the Court literally ignored the prior decision from Justice Jaffe, that specifically held the statements were sufficient to defeat a motion to dismiss, which decision was affirmed by the First Department,” Roth said. “So, we will go up to the First Department on appeal.”
The memoir also prompted a separate defamation lawsuit from the Careys’ sister, Alison. She alleged that the book falsely claimed she had thrown boiling tea on Mariah Carey and had “tried to pimp her out.” That case was never pursued, and Alison Carey died in 2024.
Morgan Carey claimed that the memoir had “ruined” him, pointing to its description of him as Mariah Carey’s “ex-brother.” He said the publication had cost him professional opportunities and left him unable to secure steady employment. He also accused his sister of failing to verify the passages about him with him before the book was published.
Mariah Carey’s legal team successfully argued that the failure to fact-check those passages with her brother did not, by itself, establish “actual malice,” a key requirement in the case.
After five years of litigation, her attorneys maintained that Morgan Carey had provided little beyond “plaintiff’s belief that Ms. Carey acted out of some sort of ‘spite or ill will,’” arguing that such an assertion did not satisfy the legal standard for malice.
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