Could it be? Mel B discussed Mariah Carey‘s disastrous New Year’s Eve performance on The Real on Tuesday, January 10, and wondered if the pop diva has lost her signature vocal abilities. (Watch what she said in the video above!)
The former Spice Girl, who was also in Times Square on December 31 to host NBC’s New Year’s Eve with Carson Daly, told the morning-show hosts she almost immediately noticed that Carey’s performance had gone awry. “I was watching, going, ‘What is going on over there?’ because I was trying to lip-synch along to her song, pretending I was Mariah, and then it all stopped, and then I looked over and I couldn’t believe what I was actually seeing,” she recalled.
“As a performer, as somebody on TV, if something happens, you just keep going,” the America’s Got Talent judge continued. “Your first reaction is to not let silence go too long, so I was in complete shock. I was like, ‘Why did you let that happen?’ And this is Mariah, who’s an amazing singer and an amazing performer.”
Mel B, 41, then questioned whether the five-time Grammy winner had trouble hitting the notes she effortlessly sang back in the ’90s and early ’00s. “Maybe she doesn’t have that voice anymore,” she said. “I hate to say it … I think maybe she was having a rough day vocally and didn’t even want to attempt that when it actually came to singing live because some of the track was pre-recorded, all of the high notes, and some of it was just blank for her to sing live.”
As previously reported, Carey was caught lip-synching after she stopped pretending to sing along to her vocal track on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest. She also suffered from a faulty earpiece, which led her and her team to later claim that Dick Clark Productions sabotaged the act for ratings. The company has denied the allegations.
“I want everyone to know that I came to New Year’s Eve in New York in great spirits and was looking forward to a celebratory moment with the world,” the Mariah’s World star said in a Twitter audio message on Sunday, January 8. “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.”
