“GIRL YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE!”
Prior to New Year’s Eve 2016, the most famous lip-sync disaster in music history took place on July 21, 1989.
That’s when Grammy-winning German pop stars Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus (a.k.a. Milli Vanilli) were performing their hit song “Girl You Know It’s True” during a televised MTV concert in Bristol, Connecticut.
Without warning, their vocal track jammed …
“Girl you know it … girl you know it … girl you know it …”
Confused, Fab and Rob danced around for a few moments before scampering offstage – humiliated.
The ensuing unspooling would soon lead to an ugly revelation – that Fab and Rob were not really Milli Vanilli. That led to lawsuits aplenty and the stripping of their Grammy award.
Fast-forward to December 31, 2016, when pop icon Mariah Carey appeared on ABC’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and attempted to lip sync to her hit song “Emotions.” The five-time Grammy winner – who has sold more than 200 million records worldwide – imploded. When the vocal track to the song “We Belong Together” kicked in, Carey’s problems only intensified.
Representatives for Carey blamed sound technicians who in turn blamed the singer – who repeatedly pleaded with technicians during her disastrous performance.
“We can’t hear,” she said at one point. “We’re missing some of these vocals, but it is what it is.”
“Put these monitors on, please,” she said later, referring to on-stage speakers that allow artists to hear themselves as they perform.
“I’m trying to be a good sport here,” the 46-year-old said as the problems remained unresolved.
“Watching it in action is like seeing a train derailing itself in slow motion,” the website Vanity Fair noted.
To her credit, Carey took the disaster in stride.
“Shit happens,” she tweeted, encouraging her fans to “have a happy and healthy new year.”
(Banner via YouTube)