Pop diva Mariah Carey suffered a series of mishaps during her New Year’s Eve performance, with viewers branding the show a disaster.
The singer, 46, took to the stage in New York’s Times Square but technical difficulties marred the event which was one of the biggest planned to ring in 2017.
The trouble continued when she gave up on another of her best-known numbers, “We Belong Together,” while a prerecording of the song continued to play, a confirmation that she had been lip-syncing.
It was a rare meltdown on national television by one of the top-selling recording artists of all time. Ms. Carey, is a pop phenomenon in the 1990s who won five Grammys out of 34 nominations over the years.
At the end of her performance, watched by millions of fans, Carey abruptly walked off stage and signed off with: “It just don’t get any better.”
She had told the crowd: “I’m trying to be a good sport here.”
Carey stopped singing her song Emotions, paced the stage and told the audience to finish the lyrics for her.
“We can’t hear. We didn’t have a check for this song… we’re missing some of these vocals, but it is what it is,” she said.
Then, appearing to give up attempting to lip sync, she said: “I’m going to say let the audience sing, okay?”
She added: “I wanted a holiday too, can I not have one?”
A representative for the singer confirmed there were technical difficulties during Saturday night’s performance, but viewers were unimpressed.
William Vercetti tweeted: “2016 took another casualty literally 10 mins before the ball drops. RIP Mariah Carey.”
Jessica Baum wrote: “Shout out to Mariah Carey’s backup dancers for still dancing/keeping a straight face while all our jaws were on the floor.”
CJ Fogler said: “Mariah Carey’s disgusted sign off is a perfect goodbye to 2016.”
Chanda Powell Fowler wrote: “I’m choosing to believe Mariah Carey’s performance was an artistic reinterpretation of the 2016 presidential election.”
Carey, who recently split from her billionaire fiance James Packer, attempted to shrug off the problems with a post on Twitter, with sad face and crying with laugher emojis.
“Sh-t happens. Have a happy and healthy new year everybody! Here’s to making more headlines in 2017,” she wrote.
Her performance was broadcast to millions of viewers as part of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest on US network ABC.
This is not the first time that Carey has suffered onstage problems.
In 2014, she faced criticism from unhappy fans after the singer struggled to get through the first night of her Elusive Chanteuse World tour in Tokyo.
At the time, it was claimed that Carey was no longer be able to reach the high notes that she became famous for and appeared to forget song lyrics during parts of her performance.
This diva can be so full of herself sometimes… celebs have a duty to entertain the fans someone should remind her of that.