ABC

Mariah said "sh*t happens" but now she's saying more about her disastrous New Year's Eve performance in New York's Times Square.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the singer answered questions about supposed audio issues and production problems that caused her to be unable to perform her hits for the Dick Clark Productions event. Speaking specifically about the late Dick Clark, Mariah said: "All I can say is Dick Clark was an incredible person and I was lucky enough to work with him when I first started in the music business. I’m of the opinion that Dick Clark would not have let an artist go through that and he would have been as mortified as I was in real time."

The production company strongly denied any wrongdoing during the performance: "As the premier producer of live television events for nearly 50 years, we pride ourselves on our reputation and long-standing relationships with artists. To suggest that [Dick Clark Productions], as producer of music shows including the American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve and Academy of Country Music Awards, would ever intentionally compromise the success of any artist is defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd. In very rare instances there are of course technical errors that can occur with live television, however, an initial investigation has indicated that [Dick Clark Productions] had no involvement in the challenges associated with Ms. Carey’s New Year’s Eve performance. We want to be clear that we have the utmost respect for Ms. Carey as an artist and acknowledge her tremendous accomplishments in the industry."

Mariah shot back, accusing the production company of sending her onstage, knowing her earpiece was faulty. The diva's rep, Nicole Perna, said they "set her up to fail." Carey's manager Stella Bulochnikov said, "... why would they want to run a performance with mechanical glitches unless they just want eyeballs at any expense … It’s not artist friendly, especially when the artist cut her vacation short as a New Year’s Eve gift to them."

Looks like the "gift" backfired -- unless Mariah subscribes to the "no publicity is bad publicity" motto, in which case she's on top of the world with all these negative but attention-grabbing headlines!