You definitely heard by now that Mariah Carey had a disastrous performance in Times Square on Saturday during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin Eve with Ryan Seacrest and you likely heard that Mimi's reps believe she was deliberately sabotaged for show ratings. Well now, Dick Clark Productions is responding to that claim.
Those who watched the NYE special saw that Carey's performance started out good when she sang part of "Auld Lang Syne," but then when the beat for her song "Emotions" kicked in things took a bad turn. The Diva admitted that no soundcheck was done and said that she could not hear any of the music in her ear. The technical difficulties were evidently not corrected and left Carey uncomfortably prancing around the stage and encouraging the audience to sing the tune since she could not.
Following the headline-making debacle, TMZ noted that the singer's team alleged in a written complaint to Dick Clark Productions that the audio system for her performance was deliberately sabotaged. The complainant goes on to say that Carey's team complained about it prior to her taking the stage.
"She was not winging this moment and took it very seriously," Carey's rep Nicole Perna said. "A shame that production set her up to fail." Perna claimed that Carey was told the issue would be fixed by the time she was ready to sing."However, that was not the case, and they were again told that her earpiece was not working. Instead of endeavoring to fix the issue so that Mariah could perform, they went live."
Dick Clark Productions has since responded to the claim and called any allegation of sabotage "absurd."
"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 statement said. "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."