VideoWatch: Mariah Carey’s disastrous New Year’s Eve performance is a fitting end to 2016

Before the ball dropped and 2016 finally came to an end, revellers in New York’s Times Square and viewers watching at home were treated to an incredibly awkward five minutes of Mariah Carey.

The pop diva had just finished singing Auld Lang Syne as part of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest. Then the track of her 1991 hit “Emotions” began. “Got me feeling,” Carey attempted, before stopping and telling her backup dancers to “just walk me down” the stairs.

“We can’t hear,” she said. Throughout the rest of the song, Carey walked around the stage and alternated between attempting to sing a phrase and explaining what was happening.

“We didn’t have a check for this song, so we’ll just sing. It went to number one,” she said. “We’re missing some of the vocals, but it is what it is.”

A representative for Carey told the Associated Press the mishap had to do with technical difficulties. And the singer with a five-octave range tweeted her own brief explanation: “S-- happens.”

Carey was the final headliner before the ball dropped. As Emotions continued, she held the microphone out to the crowd: “I say let the audience sing, OK?”