Hear Mariah Carey Blame Producers for New Year’s Eve Gaffe: ‘They Foiled Me’
Mariah Carey blamed Dick Clark Productions for her disastrous New Year’s Eve performance in a audio statement to fans that the singer tweeted Sunday morning.
In the 90-second recording, Carey said of the Rockin’ Eve production staff, “they foiled me” and turned her Times Square performance “into an opportunity to humiliate me.”
In my own words. #NYE #L4L ? #thefoilers pic.twitter.com/1jZ40WUeuH
— Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) January 8, 2017
“It’s a shame that we were put into the hands of a production team with technical issues who chose to capitalize on circumstances beyond our control,” Carey said in Sunday’s statement.
Carey’s New Year’s performance, which immediately went viral, featured the singer grappling with technical problems during her song “Emotions”; instead of singing the track, Carey instead spoke to the crowd about the technical difficulties while still carrying on with the planned choreography. “We Belong Together” was similarly marred with sound issues.
Carey’s statement comes after both the singer’s manager and representative placed blame for the incident on the producers of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. Carey’s manager Stella Bulochnikov was especially upset that Carey’s performance wasn’t removed from the West Coast feed.
“I haven’t really addressed the situation that happened on New Year’s Eve, and in time I will. But for now, I want everyone to know that I came to New Year’s Eve in New York in great spirits and was looking forward to a celebratory moment with the world,” Carey said in Sunday’s recording.
“It’s not practical for a singer to sing live and be able to hear themselves properly in the middle of Times Square with all the noise, the freezing cold, the smoke from the smoke machines, and thousands of people celebrating, especially when their ear monitors are not working properly.”
A faulty in-ear monitor has since been cited as the cause for the nightmarish performance, with both Carey’s team and Dick Clark Productions pointing the finger at the other party for the technical issue.
“Listen guys, [DCP] foiled me, thus it turned into an opportunity to humiliate me and all those who were excited to ring in the New Year with me,” Carey said Sunday. “Eventually, I will explain this in greater detail than I can give here.”
In a statement following the Carey team’s accusations, Dick Clark Productions said, “To suggest that DCP … 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.”
However, Carey continued to criticize the production team in an interview with Entertainment Weekly Tuesday.
“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 said. “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.”