Mariah Carey’s Team Claims She Was Sabotaged for New Year’s Eve Ratings

Mariah Carey‘s New Year’s Eve performance was certainly memorable for all the wrong reasons and now her team is claiming the debacle was sabotage. A representative has implied that the singer’s performance was sabotaged to give ABC a ratings boost during their broadcast. 

“I will never know the truth, but I do know that we told them three times that her mic pack was not working and it was a disastrous production,” Carey’s manager, Stella Bulochnikov, told Us Weekly. “I’m certainly not calling the FBI to investigate. It is what it is: New Year’s Eve in Times Square. Mariah did them a favor. She was the biggest star there and they did not have their s–t together.”

The rep went on to say she was “furious” with the executives responsible for the Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve production. 

“They acknowledged that they knew her inner ears were not working,” she said. “They did not cut to a commercial. They did not cut to the West Coast feed, they left her out there to get ratings.”

The now-infamous performance fell apart when Carey reportedly could not hear the backing track and stopped singing along to her songs “Emotions” and “We Belong Together.” 

Carey came under fire during the performance for appearing to not even attempt to continue and for eventually walking off stage. 

A source revealed her team sent an email “asking why they are suspiciously silent and let Mariah take all of the hits today when they are responsible for the mess.” The same source also dished that her team “did call it sabotage.” 

Dick Clark Productions responded to the allegations calling them “defamatory” and “absurd.”

Their statement read: “As the premier producer of live television events for nearly 50 years, we pride ourselves on our reputation and long-standing relationships with artists. To suggest that dcp, 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. 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. 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.”

This story first appeared at Womanista.