NEW YORK — Dick Clark Productions is hitting back against Mariah Carey’s claim that it sabotaged her live performance on its “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” special.
Carey’s disaster during the annual TV broadcast from Times Square made international headlines: The superstar vocally stumbled through her short set, failing to sing for most of it despite a pre-recorded track of her songs playing in the background.
Carey was visibly upset during the performance and afterward tweeted “(expletive) happens.” Her representative Nicole Perna blamed technical difficulties, and in an interview with Billboard she said Dick Clark Productions hampered Carey’s performance.
“She was not winging this moment and took it very seriously,” Perna told Billboard. “A shame that production set her up to fail.”
Perna said Carey’s earpiece wasn’t working and she flagged the issue to the production team, but was told it would be OK when she got on stage.
“However, that was not the case and they were again told that her earpiece was not working,” Perna said. “Instead of endeavoring to fix the issue so that Mariah could perform, they went live.”
The production company called such claims “absurd.”
“To suggest that (Dick Clark Productions) … would ever intentionally compromise the success of any artist is defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd,” the production company in a statement released Sunday.
It said that in “very rare instances” there are technical errors that can occur with live television, but an initial investigation found there were none associated with Carey’s performance.
A person familiar with the production of the show who asked for anonymity to speak publicly about the incident said all of the other performers, including Gloria Estefan, rehearsed onsite for their performances. Carey was there but had a stand-in for her rehearsal, atypical for the show’s performers. The person said all of the monitors were working and no technical problems were found.
Perna later disputed the claim that Carey did not rehearse. “Mariah did in fact rehearse at 3 p.m.,” Perna said in an email Monday to The Associated Press. “She went through vocals and her team ran through sound. All was well at rehearsal.”
– From news service reports
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.