Mariah Carey breaks silence on New Year's mishap: 'Mortified'

One day after Mariah Carey’s management team blasted Dick Clark Productions for its response to her now-infamous performance during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest, the singer is breaking her silence on the matter as well. Previously, Carey had tweeted “sh– happens” in the hours after the performance, which seemingly featured embarrassing technical failures and quickly went viral (the production company has strongly denied the performance issues were their fault).

Looking ahead, the Grammy-winning singer tackles the on-air mishap, the future of her unscripted E! series Mariah’s World, (which airs Sunday nights) and her upcoming “All the Hits” tour, which partners Carey with Lionel Richie for 35 dates starting in March — her first North American tour in seven years (we hear at least one duet is likely).

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Now that you’ve had a few days distance on the New Year’s Eve show, what are your feelings about it?
MARIAH CAREY: All I can say is Dick Clark was an incredible person and I was lucky enough to work with him when I first started in the music business. I’m of the opinion that Dick Clark would not have let an artist go through that and he would have been as mortified as I was in real time.

Do you think this will make you wary of signing onto a future live TV event?
It’s not going to stop me from doing a live event in the future. But it will make me less trusting of using anyone outside of my own team.

What’s the reaction been like on your end?
My true fans have been so supportive and I am so appreciative of them and everybody in the media that came out to support me after the fact because it really was an incredible holiday season that turned into a horrible New Year’s Eve.

With the TV series shot and airing, what are your thoughts about how it turned out?
I love the show.

Do you think there’s any way in which it has impacted the way fans perceive you?
I hope that fans love it as much as I do and are having a good time watching it. And that they can see that we really went there and gave them a candid look into Mariah’s World. We held nothing back.

Can you tease to some aspect of your upcoming tour that you think fans will be excited about?
I’m excited about my upcoming tour with Lionel Richie, who everybody loves, and I am doing so many of my hits for the fans and a few surprises too. It will be a great night to come see us with great music; beautiful ballads and so much love and fun.