2017 started off a little sh*tty and shady for Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest.
Accusations have been flying since Mariah Carey’s unfortunate performance on the New Year’s Eve programming staple went awry, with armchair critics at home snarkily tweeting that she was phoning it in—and Carey’s camp insisting that producers set her up to fail.
“Well, happy new year. We can’t hear,” Carey, looking rather stunning in a sparkly nude bodysuit, told the crowd at the New Year’s event after only the prerecorded portion of “Emotions”. “I’ll just get through the moment, OK?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QImV-wBSVeo
“We Belong Together” didn’t go any better, and Carey looked and sounded miffed when the music started and she said, “This is the album version, so I’m just going to let you put this thing on me and sing along.”
TMZ was quick to report on Jan. 1 that they had been told that Carey’s party insisted to producers that the artist’s earpiece was malfunctioning and she couldn’t go out there with that piece of equipment, but the producers figured a screw-up would be good for ratings and they sent her out there anyway.
Mariah obviously would never let one bad incident in her bedazzling career ruin the holidays by casually tweeting afterward,”Sh*t happens…Have a happy and healthy new year everybody!…Here’s to making more headlines in 2017.” But that was not the end of the discussion.
“We told them [the stage managers] that the in-ears were not working 10 minutes before the performance,” Carey’s manager, Stella Bulochnikov, told Billboard afterward. Moreover, Bulochnikov said, ABC just went ahead and aired the botched performance on the West Coast, too.
“After the show,” she continued to Billboard, “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.”
Dick Clark Productions, of course, denied setting Carey up to fail.
“As the premier producer of live television events for nearly 50 years, we pride ourselves on our reputation and long-standing relationships with artists,” DCP said in a statement released Sunday to E! News. “To suggest that DCP, as producer of music shows including the American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and Academy of Country Music Awards, would ever intentionally compromise the success of any artist is defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd.”
“In very rare instances,” DCP continued, “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. 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.”
Once again, Carey turned her attention elsewhere with this tweet during the latest episode of Mariah’s World.
I always always love seeing #Lambily members in the audience. Thank you for all your love and support. #LYM 😘❤️
— Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) January 2, 2017
“DCP knew her ear piece wasn’t working and sent her on stage regardless,” the source said. “It was sloppy and unprofessional on their part. Their statement says they didn’t intentionally sabotage her, which [her team] agrees with. It doesn’t apologize for failing to do a good job producing her performance, which is what happened. Her team knows that there are sometimes technical issues with live performances.
Meanwhile, a very notable person has weighed in on the “disastrous” performance. Sort of. Jennifer Lopez, who Mariah Carey famously claimed not to know, threw a little shade of her own in the form of an Instagram comment like.
The internet obviously immortalised the shade with this screenshot.
Damn, 2017. 3 days in and you being shady already.
