Carey was born in Huntington, Long Island, New York. She is the third and youngest child of Patricia Hickey, a former opera singer and voice coach of Irish American extraction, and Alfred Roy Carey (formerly Nuñez), an aeronautical engineer of African American and Venezuelan descent.[4] As a multiethnic family, the Careys endured racial slurs, hostility, and sometimes violence, causing the family to frequently relocate throughout the New York and Rhode Island areas. The strain on the family led to the divorce of Carey's parents when she was three years old.[