Mariah Carey, manager speak up on New Year’s Eve performance

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – Mariah Carey’s camp cleared up the issues surrounding the singer’s Dick Clark New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2017 performance in New York.

Mariah’s performance during the show became a trending topic on social media, after she experienced problems while singing some of her famous hits. (WATCH: Mariah Carey’s awkward New Year’s Eve performance)

Days after the mishap, Mariah spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the mishap, saying that the late Dick Clark – the founder of the company that produced the New Year’s Eve show – would have not allowed such thing to happen.

“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 also said that despite what happened, she will not stop doing live shows but will be careful about working with people outside of her team.

When asked about the reactions she’s heard regarding the issue, Mariah said: “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.”

What happened backstage

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Mariah’s manager Stella Bulochnikov said that reports of Mariah skipping rehearsals were not true and that they even went to Times Square earlier that day for a sound check.

At the time, the sound from her in-ear monitors were already coming in choppy, said Stella, though Mariah was assured it would be fixed in time for her performance that night. 

“She did an interview with Ryan Seacrest at about 10:35 where her in-ear was very choppy. She could barely hear Ryan. She was struggling to hear him through the noise of Times Square,” Stella said.

When they approached producer Mark Shimmel about the problem after the interview, they were told again that it would be fixed. Before the show, the stage managers assured that Mariah’s in-ears would work onstage.

Still, the singer couldn’t hear anything when it was time to perform. 

“Once she pulled them off her ear she was hoping to hear her music, but because of the circumstances – there’s noise from Times Square and the music is reverberating from the buildings – all she hears is chaos. She can’t hear her music. It’s a madhouse. At the point, there’s no way to recover,” she said. 

After Mariah walked off stage, Stella asked Mark to cut the West Coast feed, but he refused. 

Today, Mariah is just ignoring the issue, said Stella. Later in the interview, Stella accused the production of wanting a viral moment, as they had refused to take the live feed down. 

“But even when it didn’t work [when live], when she pulled her ears out, they should have cut to commercial,” said Stella. “That says to me they wanted a viral moment at any expense. And that’s not a company with integrity for 50-something years. That’s not who Dick Clark was. He loved artists.”

Lip-syncing?

Stella also addressed the criticism that Mariah was supposedly lip-syncing to her songs, explaining that every artist sings to tracks, especially in circumstances when the show can be loud and noisy.

“Every artist who goes out there sings to tracks. What Mariah was doing was singing to tracks,” said Stella. “What you heard on the second song, “Emotions,” was her going to sing it live. That’s why you heard no vocals. It’s a song she sings every other day.”

The people behind Dick Clark Productions, who are also the team behind the Golden Globes and American Music Awards, have yet to speak up after Stella’s interview. But in an earlier statement, they denied that they sabotaged Mariah’s performance. 

“In very rare instances there are of course technical errors that can occur with live television, however, an initial investigation has indicated that [Dick Clark Productions] 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,” part of their statement said. – Rappler.com