‘They foiled me’: Carey weighs in on disastrous New Year’s Eve show
Listen, guys, they 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. Eventually I will explain this in greater detail for anyone who wants to hear. Mariah Carey
A WEEK after her disastrous New Year’s Eve performance, Mariah Carey is still claiming she was sabotaged.
On Sunday, the singer posted an audio recording of herself addressing the performance in her “own words” for the first time. The tweet was accompanied by a telling hashtag: # thefoilers.
In the recording, Carey draws a deep breath before talking for nearly two minutes – longer than she sang live on New Year’s Eve, it must be noted.
“I haven’t really addressed the situation that happened on New Year’s Eve, and in time I will,” Carey says. “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. 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.”
The 46-year- old pop diva continued about the difficulties of performing live at the New Year’s Eve festivities.
“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, thousands of people celebrating — especially when their ear monitors were not working at all,” she says.
“Listen, guys, they foiled me,” Carey concludes. “Thus it turned into an opportunity to humiliate me and all those who were excited to ring in the New Year with me. Eventually I will explain this in greater detail for anyone who wants to hear. I can’t deny that my feelings were hurt.”
For anyone who happened to miss the Times Square debacle, watching a full video of what happened — or rather, what didn’t happen — on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest” last Saturday may be the best way to catch up.
In short, Carey spent nearly six minutes roaming the stage and singing fragments of her hit songs here and there as a backing track blared on. In between, the singer tried to explain to the audience that there were technical difficulties.
“We can’t hear,” Carey declared during “Emotions”, one of her chart-toppers from 1991. “We didn’t have a check for this song, so we’ll just say it went to No. 1. We’re missing some of the vocals, but it is what it is.”
Suffice it to say, the cringeworthy performance set Twitter afire in the waning seconds of 2016 and made headlines around the world on New Year’s Day.
Initially, Carey seemed to brush off what had happened.
“Sh-t happens,” she tweeted a couple hours after the ball drop.
Hours later, however, her representatives accused Dick Clark Productions of, well, dropping the ball on production issues that had caused technical difficulties.
“Last night, just prior to taking the stage, Mariah alerted production and the stage managers that her earpiece was not working,” a representative for Carey told ABC News in a statement on New Year’s Day.
“They told her it would be fine once she was onstage. However, that was not the case, and they were again told that her earpiece was not working. Instead of endeavouring to fix the issue so that Mariah could perform, they went live.”
The singer later told Entertainment Weekly she was “mortified” by the performance.
Dick Clark Productions initially responded by saying her claims were “defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd.”
Still, the company noted that technical errors do happen on live television, albeit very rarely, and had conducted an initial investigation that found the company had no involvement in “the challenges associated with Ms. Carey’s New Year’s Eve performance.”
It added that the company held “the utmost respect” for the Grammy-winning singer.
On Sunday, Dick Clark Productions responded to Carey’s latest audio post with a decidedly terser statement.
“We have no comment,” company spokeswoman Gina Sorial said in an email to The Washington Post.
Carey ended her recording Sunday by saying she planned to take a break from social media and thanked her fans and “true friends” for supporting her.
“I’m going to take a break from media moments, social media moments,” Carey said. “Although I’m going to fulfil my professional obligations, this is an important time for me to finally take a moment for myself and to be with my loved ones and prepare for my upcoming tour in March. I just want to thank everyone for their support, thank you to all my industry friends and thank you to my Lambs, you’re always there for me. I can’t imagine life without you and you’ll always be a part of me. I can’t wait to sing for you again.” — WP-Bloomberg