Mariah Carey's Epic Response To The NYE Fiasco

It was a rough New Year for Mariah Carey, who experienced technical difficulties so severe during her Times Square performance just before the ball dropped that the Grammy-winner ended up asking the audience to fill in the words, delivered a poorly executed lip sync, and ultimately walked off the stage before her set was scheduled to end with a disgusted "I just don't get any better." The debacle, of course, made her the the subject of relentless ridicule online, but Mimi (however frustrated she seemed onstage), was ready to brush the whole thing off just like many of us are ready to forget 2016 even happened. In fact, Mariah Carey's response to her New Year's Eve performance cements her status as pop music royalty — and, of course, as the ultimate diva.

It all went down after a a gloriously glitch-free rendition of "Auld Lang Syne," the first of the Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest headliner's three-song set. As Carey segued into "Emotions," it became painfully and awkwardly clear that she couldn't hear a thing, and she even said there hadn't been a sound check beforehand. "We’re missing some of the vocals, but it is what it is," she said at one point, and soon implored technicians to fix the problem.

They never did, however, forcing Carey to stumble through "Emotions" alternating among trying to sing, trying to lip sync, and explaining to the audience (and ABC's millions of at-home viewers) what, exactly had gone wrong. During "We Belong Together," she gave up even the appearance that she was actually singing when she dropped the mic to her side while mouthing the words. "I'm trying to be a good sport here," she said at one point, as her backup dancers heroically and professionally soldiered on as best the botched performance would allow. But soon after, Carey, too, joined in on the joke — sort of.

"Shit happens," she tweeted, along with an epic gif of the ponytailed diva shrugged and saying just that. "Have a happy and healthy new year everybody! Here's to making more headlines in 2017"

It was perhaps the only adequate reaction to a set so far gone that there was essentially nothing Carey could do to salvage it. Although the technical difficulties that plagued her during the show seem to have been far out of her control, some viewers were calling it the end of her career and slinging other, perhaps unwarranted, insults her way. Well, Mimi's counting her losses and moving on — and hoping the headlines she makes in 2017 are a little more flattering.