MARIAH Carey’s TRL appearance in the noughties has resurfaced, as fans unpick the ‘horrible’ treatment the star receieved when Carson Daly hosted the show.
In the early 2000s, Mariah Carey appeared on Total Request Live, with the hitmaker raising eyebrows when she showed up with an ice cream cart – with fans now calling for an apology to be issued to the star.
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Seemingly completely unannounced, the Butterfly singer showed up at a taping of TRL with Carson Daly, with her even pushing an ice cream cart.
Singing her hit song Loverboy from the Glitter movie and wearing a t-shirt that said ‘Loverboy’ on it, Mariah’s appearance baffled many people – and Carson looked stunned to say the least.
Carson Daly, who was hosting the show, appeared to not know why Mariah had turned and he appeared confused when he asked her “what are you doing?” as the singer went to take off her t-shirt.
Mariah then took off the pale purple t-shirt to reveal some tiny gold hotpants and a strappy vest t-shirt underneath.
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Carson exclaimed again, “what are you doing?” before declaring, “Mariah Carey is stripping on TRL right now”.
He then asked, “Is it my birthday and I didn’t know about it?”
Somebody shared a short 30-second clip from Mariah’s appearance on the show and asked, “Can someone explain why Mariah Carey’s ice cream cart appearance on TRL was considered a “mental breakdown” in 2001?”
“If I’m remembering correctly from her memoir, Carson essentially set her up because they had arranged the appearance together…
“But when she actually arrived, he pretended that she was crashing the set and it made her look unhinged for ‘randomly’ showing up with the ice cream. Lambs, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong,” replied one fan.
A second person then weighed in, “I had no idea this was a setup til this moment! Wow I vividly remember this and Mariah was definitely made to look unhinged for this.”
While a third added, “God I remember this time, the way everybody treated her was horrible. The media were out of control.”
And a fourth person penned, “A major one and he really went unscathed when he rightfully deserved heat for this. This absolutely wouldn’t fly today and he’d be posting an apology online faster than Mariah’s ‘striptease’.”
‘CARSON SABOTAGED MARIAH’
Another person then penned a lengthy response where they explained how it was a pre-planned stunt that “Carson decided to sabotage” by pretending Mariah shouldn’t have even been there.
“For whatever reason, press was able to run with it, even though the idea that Mariah could get on to a set with an ice cream cart (with cameras somehow perfectly capturing her entrance) could be seen as a breakdown is beyond me,” they added.
All performers bomb, but my bombing set off a chain reaction that placed a target on my back.”
Mariah Carey
“I’m so glad she came back with Emancipation and proved everyone wrong,” they later concluded.
In 2001, the singer’s publicist confirmed she had an “emotional and physical breakdown” after her TRL appearance. Mariah then went to stay at a rehab facitlity for a short while.
Within the pages of The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the hitmaker’s honest book that hit book shelves in 2020, Mariah reveals that what happened in 2001 was not a “breakdown,” but “somatization” due to anxiety, exhaustion and past trauma.
‘A HIGHLY UNREHEARSED MOMENT’
The singer explained how her TRL appearance came around the time she was preparing for the release of the Glitter soundtrack and her schedule was “relentless”.
With her lead single, Loverboy, only at number two on the charts, Mariah planned a stunt at Total Request Live, to try to help the track’s publicity.
Mariah then “crashed” the show for “a highly unrehearsed” moment.
In her book she recalls, “I very much freestyled my dialogue, as I tend to do, and I was hoping Carson Daly could play off of me, riff, and involve the audience.
“But he didn’t play along. (I know he was probably told to act surprised, but he didn’t act at all.)”
“I certainly was not stripping — I was revealing,” Mariah then penned in the book in response to Carson’s reaction to her taking off her t-shirt.
Mariah then branded the incident as “A. Stunt. Gone. Awry,” adding, “I was like a stand-up comic who bombed a set.
“All performers bomb, but my bombing set off a chain reaction that placed a target on my back.”
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