Nick Cannon Defends Mariah Carey’s ‘Foiled’ NYE Performance

After Mariah Carey had a humiliating performance at Times Square’s New Year’s Eve countdown, the star has been shying away from the media spotlight. During the performance, technical malfunctions left Carey stumbling vocally in her hit song “Emotions,” unable to hit the notes through a mismatching of lyrics and music.

After that mortifying experience, Carey shared a two-minute audio recording to her Twitter, explaining the incident:

“I haven’t really addressed the situation that happened on New Year’s Eve and in time, I will. But for now, I want everyone to know that I came to New Year’s Eve in New York in great spirit and was looking forward to a celebratory moment with the world. It’s a shame that we were put into the hands of a production team with technical issues, who chose to capitalize on circumstances beyond our control.”

 

Carey refused to take any responsibility for the night’s blunders, and now, Nick Cannon, Carey’s ex-husband, is taking a similar stance of the countdown.

Cannon appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Monday, and joked, “I’m a conspiracy theorist. I think the government did that. They set her up.”

In a more serious tone, Canon continued, “Anyone who knows about performing and having inner ears: Things like that can go wrong on live television. I think she kinda got a little flustered, but being the diva that she is, she said, ‘I’m just gonna walk around and pose for seven minutes.'”

Carey didn’t just stand on stage awkwardly for seven minutes though (it was probably only five minutes); after being unable to sing “Emotions,” she attempted her next song — “We Belong Together.” Partway through it, the singer gave up, but the singing continued — a confirmation that she had been lip-syncing.

In her audio clip, Carey explained: “It’s not practical for a singer to sing live and be able to hear themselves properly in the middle of Times Square with all the noise, the freezing cold, the smoke from the smoke machine…especially when their ear monitors were not working at all…They foiled me.”