Mariah Carey New Year’s Eve performance causes controversy
January 13, 2017
Fans are calling singer-songwriter Mariah Carey’s performance on ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” a train wreck.
It was an unusual meltdown on national television by one of the top-selling recording artists. The pop phenomenon was the final pre-midnight performance. Just as she finished the new year welcoming song “Auld Lang Syne,” her performance began to get out of hand.
“We’re missing some of these vocals, but it is what it is,” said Carey telling the fans there had not been a sound check for her hit song “Emotions.” She was confirmed lip-syncing the rest of her performance of the songs “Emotions” and “We Belong Together.”
On Jan. 1, there was a dispute between Carey’s representatives and her producers. The technical errors were blamed on Dick Clark Productions. “The show’s producers had been aware of technical problems but did not fix them and chose to continue showing Carey’s messy performance,” said manager Stella Bulochnikov in an interview with New York Times.
A statement was put out on Jan. 1 saying that the production had nothing to do with the mishap that had happened and that the company “would ever intentionally compromise the success of any artist is defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd,” said Dick Clark Productions (nytimes.com).
On live television, it is rare for technical errors to occur, “an initial investigation has indicated that DCP had no involvement in the challenges associated with Carey’s New Year’s Eve performance,” said Dick Clark Productions in an interview with Us Weekly.
“We want to be clear that we have the utmost respect for Carey as an artist and acknowledge her tremendous accomplishments in the industry,” said Dick Clark Productions.
Carey is very thankful for the fans she has, “I am so appreciative of them and everybody in the media who came out to support me after the fact,” said Carey in an interview with CNN.