Mariah Carey Fires Her Longtime Creative Director

From Cosmopolitan

It appears the first ax has fallen in the wake of the Mariah Carey New Year’s Eve lip-syncing fiasco. The singer will no longer work with her longtime creative director and tour choreographer and dancer Anthony Burrell, according to Entertainment Tonight.

"He's not being brought back [in 2017] for a number of reasons," an unnamed source told the outlet.

The source claims that it was Burrell’s decision to move Mariah’s backup singers off her main stage - and onto the base of the audience risers - to make room for more dancers. Burrell allegedly made this call without the approval of Mariah or her management team, and the switch "left Mariah without any support," the source explained. Had they been closer, the backup singers could have helped Mariah pick up cues after her inner earpiece failed, leaving her unable to hear the music - or at least provided emotional support.

Burrell tweeted about the performance Monday, defending Carey.

There have been multiple explanations about what went wrong on stage that night. Mariah’s team implied earlier this week that she was the victim of “sabotage,” accusing the production company of ignoring her complaints that her earpieces weren’t working. Dick Clark Productions fired back, saying the accusation is “defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd.”

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Today, Mariah herself spoke out for the first time about the performance, telling 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.”

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