Mariah Carey's Times Square New Year's Eve performance won't be forgotten for a while. On top of becoming literally the first meme of the year, Carey claims that Dick Clark Productions purposely sabotaged the show for ratings.
In an interview with EW, Carey’s manager Stella Bulochnikov spoke about what transpired before the performance and shot down rumors that Carey didn't do a soundcheck.
"Not only did she not ditch rehearsal, we got to Times Square at 2:30. They weren’t ready for her until 3:20. We waited around for their stage manager. We had the stage from 3:20 to 3:50. She had a dance stand-in for the musical number. She sat on the side of the stage with her ear-pack and her in-ears and her microphone to make sure she could do the sound check. The most important thing to her was the sound. The sound was coming in choppy. She was assured it would work by the evening," Bulochnikov said.
But apparently, the sound wasn't working during the performance, and neither were Carey's earpieces.
"So she pulls them out of the ear because if the artist keeps them in their ears, then all she hears is silence. 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," Bulochnikov continued. "She can’t hear her music. It’s a madhouse. At the point, there’s no way to recover. On the third song, when she could hear her track playing, it was so bad she said, 'F—k it, I’ve had enough.’”
And the rest was New Year's Eve history.
Carey's people alleged that the horrible production was a way to garner ratings, but Dick Clark Productions has denied the accusations.
"As the premier producer of live television events for nearly 50 years, we pride ourselves on our reputation and long-standing relationships with artists," the production company said in a statement. "To suggest that dcp [Dick Clark Productions] 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. 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."
As Carey fumbled her way through the performance, it was clear she was having technical difficulties. But here's an idea: How about maybe not lip-synching in the first place?