2016 ended on an odd note for Mariah Carey who flopped during ABC New Year’s Eve show. Gleaming in her bodysuit, the 1990s pop queen took the stage and sang loudly “Auld Lang Syne.”
She continued in her quest to get the audience thrilled as she pranced across the stage. Suddenly, she looked surprised and tried to belt out her second song, “Emotions” from 1991 – the same song that earned her a Grammy Award for best female pop vocal performance in 1992. But she lost the grip of her lyrics and struggled her way out of the song.
But she lost the grip of her lyrics and struggled her way out of the song.
As Carey clearly battled with the lyrics, she decided to open up to the audience saying;
“We’re missing some of these vocals, but it is what it is. “Let the audience sing,” she added as she tries to maintain her coolness.
Again, rather than singing, Carey joined her backup dancers to make some moves before going over to the third song of the evening, “We Belong Together,”. However, she stopped singing again due to a sudden inexplicable technical drawback.
”We didn’t have a soundcheck but it’s New Year’s, baby,” she said as her music continued to play without her vocals. “It’s OK, you guys.”
She continued to race about the stage before adding “I’m trying to be a good sport here,”.
All the while, the prerecorded track kept playing in the background.
The pop princess who insured her legs against any form damage seemed to have prepared to lip sync, but her vocals failed her― and when they did fail, she was often far out of sync with them.
In spite of the big fail, the singer seemed unmoved and finally said
“It is what it is. “It just doesn’t get any better,” before walking off stage.
Mariah Carey’s performance seems so retro of 2013. And to think she deliberately pretended to sing her song while the audience actually sang her song is another example of celebrity treating their fans with scorn.
Her team tried to make excuses for the poor performance. They blamed faulty earpieces and also said she was set up to fail by Dick Clark Productions, the production company that sponsors yearly “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” special on ABC.
They claimed that Carey, who had gone for a rehearsal earlier in the day, had told Dick Clark Productions that her earpiece was not working. Carey’s publicist, Nicole Perna, revealed that she “was not winging this moment and took it very seriously” and added, “A shame that production set her up to fail.”
The productions, on the other hand, dismissed the claim saying it is defamatory, absurd and outrageous to suggest it would intentionally compromise the success of any artist.
Mariah herself spoke up about the appalling incident saying she was ‘mortified’ by the lip-syncing disaster she suffered on live television.
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,’ Carey told Entertainment Weekly.
‘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.’
Well, whatever went wrong on that stage, the act got everybody talking about Mariah Carey and that’s might just be a cool way to start a new year!
Plus the singer has since insisted the flop is not going to make quit from performing on live television.
‘It’s not going to stop me from doing a live event in the future. But it will make me less trusting of using anyone outside of my own team,’ she told Entertainment Weekly.
‘My true fans have been so supportive and I am so appreciative of them and everybody in the media that came out to support me after the fact because it really was an incredible holiday season that turned into a horrible New Year’s Eve.’
2017 baby pic.twitter.com/xfJ7ngaoRD
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) January 1, 2017