Mariah Carey has said she is "mortified" by her now-infamous New Year's Eve performance. The singer suffered a series of audio issues during her appearance on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest. And she has now broken her silence on the incident.
"All I can say is Dick Clark was an incredible person and I was lucky enough to work with him when I first started in the music business," Mariah told Entertainment Weekly. "I'm of the opinion that Dick Clark would not have let an artist go through that and he would have been as mortified as I was in real time."
Mariah Carey has broken her silence on her now-infamous New Year's Eve performance
Although visibly frustrated by the technical mishaps while on stage at the time, Mariah insisted the incident hasn't put her off doing another live on-air performance. "It's not going to stop me from doing a live event in the future," she added. "But it will make me less trusting of using anyone outside of my own team."
The singer also added a thank you to her "true fans" and the media that supported her following the mishap. "I'm so appreciative of them," she said. "It really was an incredible holiday season that turned into a horrible New Year's Eve."
Ever since the performance, during which technical difficulties seemingly forced the singer to stop and start throughout, questions have been asked of both the production company and Mariah.
The singer suffered a series of lip-synching mishaps during her appearance
One report by TMZ cited a source who claimed that there were suspicions the TV company had "sabotaged" the singer's performance, by providing her with a faulty earpiece, in order to score higher ratings.
In response, Dick Clark Productions said in a statement: "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 [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.
"In very rare instances there are of course technical errors that can occur with live television, however, an initial investigation has indicated that [Dick Clark Productions] 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."