Celebrity News January 02, 2017
Mariah Carey & Dick Clark Productions’ New War of Words After NYE Performance Nightmare
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Over the weekend, Mariah Carey made major headlines for her failed performance on "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve,” hosted by Ryan Seacrest.
During the show, Mariah struggled with her performance of “Emotions” and “We Belong Together,” with many saying it was obvious she had intended to lip-sync the whole show. While the backing track played for “Emotions,” she told the audience, "Well, happy New Year! We can't hear, but I'll just get through the moment. We didn't have a [sound-] check for this song, so we'll just say it went to number one, and that's what it is."
After the performance, Mariah's team claims she was sabotaged. Her rep Nicola Perna told Billboard, "She was not 'winging' this moment and took it very seriously. A shame that production set her up to fail.”
Perna went on to say that Mariah tried to tell production her earpiece wasn't working before the performance. “They told her it would be fine once she was onstage. However, that was not the case and they were again told that her ear piece was not working. Instead of endeavoring to fix the issue so that Mariah could perform, they went live.”
“Any allegations that she planned to lip-sync are just adding insult to injury,” she continued.
Carey's manager Stella Bulochnikov explained how she tried to alleviate the situation. She told Billboard, "After the show, I called [Dick Clark Productions'] Mark Shimmel and I said, 'What the f**k happened?' He said, 'Let me call you back,' then called me back and confirmed the in-ears were not working and asked if I would make a joint statement. I said, 'No way.' I asked him to cut the West Coast feed. He said he could not do that. I asked him why would they want to run a performance with mechanical glitches unless they just want eyeballs at any expense... It's not artist-friendly, especially when the artist cut her vacation short as a New Year's Eve gift to them.”
Stella also blames production for only caring about ratings, telling New York Post, “Once things went wrong, they took the decision to keep rolling and make her look like a train wreck for the ratings. They owe her a public apology.”
Dick Clark Productions responded to the accusations, telling “Extra," “To suggest that [Dick Clark Productions] … 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.”
