Mariah Carey Plagued by Technical Difficulties During Live New Year's Eve Performance

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Mariah Carey suffered a performance nightmare live on TV,
unable to hit her famous high notes and to sync up with lyrics.  

Carey’s live performance on ABC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s
Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest
from Times Square did not go smoothly after
technical difficulties left her stranded on stage.

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After a solid performance of “Auld Lang Syne,” the trouble
started when Carey began to sing “Emotions,” when she announced, “We can’t
hear,” and then started talking to the audience. Later, when trying to perform
“We Belong Together,” the singer fell out of sync with the music, revealing
that she was not singing live. She eventually dropped her handheld microphone
to her side and walked to the back of the stage while ABC cut away to excited
fans dancing in the streets. 

“It just doesn’t get any better,” Carey said dryly at the
end of the performance, before exiting the stage.  

While reps for ABC and Dick Clark Productions offered no
comment about the apparent performance challenges, Carey addressed the incident
on Twitter. “Sh*t happens,” Carey wrote. “Have a happy and healthy new year
everybody! Here's to making more headlines in 2017.”

Following the performance snafu, Carey’s reps told ET:
“There was a production issue. Technical difficulties. There unfortunately was
nothing she could do to continue with the performance given the circumstances.” 

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While Carey remained professional onstage, even joking with
the audience, a source close to the singer tells ET “Mariah is very upset and
rightfully so,” adding that ABC “should have stopped [the performance] and
fixed their technical difficulties.”

“Mariah's inner earpiece went completely out at the
beginning of the performance and she couldn't hear anything, she couldn't hear
the music to sing ‘Emotions,’” the source continued. “Mariah is very
disappointed over these technical difficulties as she wanted it to be as
festive and fabulous as possible for the lambs but she is doing OK.”