Mariah Carey’s Manager Accuses Rockin Eve of Sabotage, DCP Calls Charge Absurd

Mariah Carey New Year's Rockin Eve 2017

The aftermath of Mariah Carey’s tragic lip sync disaster on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve with Ryan Seacrest includes both the Mariah and dick clark production teams pointing fingers at each other.

Pull up a lawn chair and grab your popcorn folks!.

First, Mariah’s manager, Stella Bulochnikov released a statement to Billboard, taking dick clark productions to task:

“We told them [the stage managers] that the in-ears were not working 10 minutes before the performance,” Bulochnikov says. “They then changed the battery pack, and they were still not working on the frequency four minutes before the show. We let them know again, and they just kept counting her down and reassuring her that they will work as soon as they go live, which never happened — at which point she pulled them out but could not hear the music over the crowd.

After the show, I called [Dick Clark Productions’] Mark Shimmel and I said, ‘What the f— happened?’ He said, ‘Let me call you back,’ then called me back and confirmed the in-ears were not working and asked if I would make a joint statement. I said, ‘No way.’ I asked him to cut the West Coast feed. He said he could not do that. I asked him why would they want to run a performance with mechanical glitches unless they just want eyeballs at any expense … It’s not artist friendly, especially when the artist cut her vacation short as a New Year’s Eve gift to them.”

One of Mariah’s reps, BWR-PR’s Nicole Perna, a rep for Carey, insisted in a statement to Billboard that “production set her up to fail.” But a production source told the magazine that Mariah “had ample time to rehearse and chose not to,” instead using a body double to rehearse in her place earlier in the day and that at the time, “all was working” on the technical side.

dick clark productions volleyed back Sunday evening (Jan. 1) with a statement of their own:

“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.”

Billboard spoke with “multiple sources involved with the show” and concluded that there definitely was an issue with Mariah’s in-ears. According to two Billboard insiders, the audio feed was “set to the wrong frequency.” Both sources told the magazine the fault was on Carey’s tech team, which seems to support repeated claims by dcp that all was functioning properly on the show production end.

The thing is there are literally no instances of dcp outright purposely failing an artist, for ratings or any other reason. Yet, Mariah has had multiple mishaps in the past few years, both on stage and on live television.

About mj santilli 34829 Articles
Founder and editor of mjsbigblog.com, home of the awesomest fan community on the net. I love cheesy singing shows of all kinds, whether reality or scripted. I adore American Idol, but also love The Voice, Glee, X Factor and more!