Mariah Carey's ex-husband defends NYE performance fail: 'Leave her the hell alone'

Mariah Carey's ex-husband Tommy Mottola has defended the Emotions singer over her failed New Year's Eve performance. Carey, 46, stormed off-stage after suffering technical difficulties during Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve show on 31 December. However, Carey's former spouse blames the pop icon's management team for the disaster.

The We Belong Together hitmaker was left embarrassed when her in-ear monitors stopped working and she struggled to hear the backing track. After a failed attempt at lip-syncing, Carey abruptly ended the performance leaving the Times Square audience stunned.

Addressing the controversy, Mottola, who was married to Carey between 1993 and 1998, wrote in a letter to Page Six: "My only advice is that she should hire more seasoned and respected professionals to surround her and help her with her career! I would never have encouraged her or guided her to do something like a reality television show!!!!! I don't get it!! That does absolutely nothing for her integrity, her credibility, or her massive talent!!"

The former Sony Music boss added: "Most certainly none of these issues or problems ever existed with her in her early days at Sony for the first 10 years when she skyrocketed to global superstardom!! Where absolutely meticulous and methodical attention was paid to every single detail and nuance that went on into her career!"

Sympathising with Carey's humiliation and the criticism she has received since, Mottola concluded: "It could have happened to anyone and it has, so everyone should just get off her back and leave her the hell alone and hopefully she will find her way to the right professionals for guidance. It's never about the fall, it's all about the recovery."

Carey ended her professional relationship with longtime publicist Cindi Berger in April 2015 and hired Stella Bulochnikov as her new manager. Following Mottola's criticism of her management skills, Bulochnikov responded: "Really? Tommy is a relic. Did he give you that statement from a rotary phone?"

Despite the backlash, Carey remains defiant and vows not to allow the incident to affect her future performances. The Hero singer told Entertainment Weekly: "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."

Carey will resume her Las Vegas residency, titled Number 1 To Infinity, on 8 July at The Colosseum at Caesar's Palace.