Carson Daly is mourning his mother.
Pattie Daly Caruso died suddenly of a heart attack at her Palm Desert, California home on Sunday, September 17, the Desert Son reported. She was 73. According to the paper, the former TV personality interviewed public figures including Barbara Sinatra and President Donald Trump on her independent interview show Valley Views, which ran for 25 years.
“Kiki, as she was known to her grandchildren and many others, touched so many lives with her kindness, her giant spirit and her love life,” Carson wrote in a statement to Us Weekly on Monday, September 18. “She will be terribly missed by her family and the world, but her spark will shine for eternity.”
Daly Caruso, who Today Show’s Orange Room host has called “the bravest woman I know,” was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998 and underwent a single mastectomy. When Carson was six, he lost his dad, “J.D.,” to bladder cancer. “Cancer took the life of my father,” the 44-year-old told Radio.com in 2016. “But it spared the life of my mother.” In the interview her tenderly recalled the day she went in for surgery. “They asked her what song she would want played in the operating room. I was expecting maybe the Eagles or Fleetwood Mac,” he revealed. “She choose R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly.” So that song holds some deep meaning for me. When I hear it now, wherever I’m at, I think about my mom getting wheeled into the operating room.”
Carson told Today in 2013 that he saw Daly Caruso as the ultimate role model. “I think having a strong parent has been such an inspiration because it’s a constant reminder me to find my own pillar of strength and to be that for my own growing family,” mused the father of Jackson, 8, Etta, 5, and London, 3, with wife Siri Pinter.
On Mother’s Day, he shared a black and white photo of Daly Caruso, his sister Quinn and their dad, J.D. “Happy Mother’s Day to this rock star mom,” he wrote. “You’re the embodiment of strength and love. Thanks mom! XO.”
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