Mariah Carey was one of the Times Square headliners for the 2017 edition. Her performance was notably marred by technical issues; when opening with "Emotions", Carey remarked throughout the song that she was unable to hear her backing track. On her second song, "We Belong Together", she briefly sang the song without incident, but abruptly stopped —revealing that she had been lip syncing. A representative of the singer claimed that Carey had alerted production staff that her in-ear monitors were not working, but that they refused to address the situation, and alleged that they were " her up to fail." Dick Clark Productions denied any wrongdoing, stating that they "had no involvement" in the incident, and that the allegations by Carey's management that they had intentionally sabotaged her performance were "defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd."