Mariah Carey’s team may be busy after her jaw-dropping performance on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest.”
While many were waiting for the ball to drop on New Year’s Eve, one well-known singer ‘dropped the ball’ during her performance in New York City’s Times Square.
Attendees in Times Square and viewers at home had the pleasure of watching the 46-year-old “All I Want for Christmas” singer fumble for an awkward five minutes.
Carey was the last pre-midnight guest on the ABC special that included a performance by Fifth Harmony.
The pop diva had just finished singing the traditional New Year’s Eve song “Auld Lang Syne” when the track of her 1991 hit “Emotions” began.
“Got me feeling,” Carey attempted, before stopping and telling her backup dancers to “just walk me down” the stairs.
“We can’t hear,” she said. Throughout the rest of the song, Carey strolled around the stage and interchanged between attempting to sing a phrase and explaining what was happening.
“We didn’t have a check for this song, so we’ll just sing,” Carey said. “It went to number one. We’re missing some of the vocals, but it is what it is.”
According to Carey’s team, there were production issues and technical difficulties with the singer’s earpiece. Carey’s team said there unfortunately was nothing she could do to continue with the performance given the circumstances.
As “Emotions” continued, she held the microphone out to the crowd: “I say let the audience sing, okay?”
Finally, the track ended. “That was,” Carey said, with a long pause, “amazing.”
According to a statement from Carey’s representatives, the singer rehearsed the afternoon of the show “with no sound issues,” but, just before taking the stage Saturday night, she notified stage managers and producers that her earpiece wasn’t functioning, reported ABC News.
Carey’s ex-husband Nick Cannon weighed in on the performance with his own theory.
“I’m a conspiracy theorist,” Cannon said in an interview. “The government did that. They set her up.”
“They told her it would be fine once she was on stage. However, that was not the case and they were again told that her ear piece was not working,” reported ABC News. “Instead of endeavoring to fix the issue so that Mariah could perform, they went live.”
According to ABC News, Carey’s representatives said she was intent on honoring her commitment and therefore took the stage essentially flying blind and defended her use of a backing track as common for live performances. Her representatives said she was not planning on lip- syncing.
Carey released an audio recording, accusing Dick Clark Productions of attempting to embarrass her.
“I came to New Year’s Eve in New York in great spirits and was looking forward to a celebratory moment with the world,” Carey said. “It’s a shame that we were put into the hands of a production team with technical issues who chose to capitalize on circumstances beyond our control.”
Celebrities including Queen Latifah defended Mariah Carey.
“Yeah, it happens, it definitely happens,” Latifah told Fox News. “It may seem very simple but when you have a huge crowd around you, you’re using earbuds to hear, and you really can’t hear outside of that.”
Latifah said the earpieces are kind of like noise cancelling headphones. “So when they go off you can hear nothing and everything is moving around you,” Latifah told Fox News.
Carey tweeted her own explanation along with a GIF of herself: “Sh*t happens. Have a happy and healthy new year everybody! Here’s to making more headlines in 2017.”
