It was a rough end to the year for Mariah Carey, as the famed songstress became internet fodder after her disastrous live performance on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve television special.
Now, for the first time, she’s speaking out about how “mortified” she felt during the experience.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the ‘Emotions’ singer revealed: “All I can say is Dick Clark was an incredible person and I was lucky enough to work with him when I first started in the music business.
“I’m of the opinion that Dick Clark would not have let an artist go through that and he would have been as mortified as I was in real time,” she said.
The singer seemed to stumble several times throughout her three-song set. Photo: Getty
While Mariah added that she wouldn’t say no to doing more live events in future, the incident had made her “less trusting of using anyone outside of my own team”.
Since the attention-grabbing performance, which saw Mariah struggling to perform some of her biggest hits alongside a pre-recorded backing track, the star’s team has publicly laid blame on the Dick Clark production crew.
Mariah’s manager Stella Bulochnikov maintains that they had concerns about her earpiece malfunctioning, which they raised before the performance. According to her, they were told it would work when Mariah went live.
“Remember this is not our production team, we’re outsourcing our team, which we never do,” Bulochnikov told Entertainment Weekly.
“That was … amazing,” Mariah sarcastically told fans after finishing one song.
The in-ear audio did not work, however, and neither did the teleprompter, resulting in the on-stage meltdown. Mariah reportedly believes her performance was ‘sabotaged’ by Dick Clark Productions, according to a story published by TMZ, and her rep later told Billboard it was “a shame that production set her up to fail”.
For their part, a statement released by the Dick Clark Productions company stated: “As the premier producer of live television events for nearly 50 years, we pride ourselves on our reputation and long-standing relationships with artists. To suggest that dcp, as producer of music shows including the American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and Academy of Country Music Awards, would ever intentionally compromise the success of any artist is defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd.
“In very rare instances there are of course technical errors that can occur with live television, however, an initial investigation has indicated that dcp had no involvement in the challenges associated with Ms. Carey’s New Year’s Eve performance. We want to be clear that we have the utmost respect for Ms. Carey as an artist and acknowledge her tremendous accomplishments in the industry.”
After her live performance debacle, Mariah seemed to be trying to shake off the attention with a resolutely positive post on social media, writing: “S— happens. Have a happy and healthy new year everybody! Here’s to making more headlines in 2017.”
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