Production team rejects claims it sabotaged Mariah Carey's New Year's Eve performance

The production company behind the Times Square New Year's Eve special has described claims that it deliberately sabotaged Mariah Carey's live performance as "defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd".

The pop diva's publicist Nicole Perna claimed the production crew knew her earpiece was faulty and "set her up to fail" before her lip sync nightmare.

Carey was left stumbling on stage for five minutes, failing to sing for most of the short set as a pre-recorded track of her songs played in the background, in a trainwreck performance that made headlines around the world.

In an interview with US music site Billboard, Perna said Carey had raised an issue with the earpiece to the production team and claims she was told it would function when she got on stage in New York.

"However, that was not the case, and they were again told that her earpiece was not working," Perna said. "Instead of endeavouring to fix the issue so that Mariah could perform, they went live."

Dick Clark Productions issued a statement rejecting the accusations.

The company recognised technical errors occurred with live television in "very rare instances", but said its initial investigation suggested it had no involvement in the issues that left Carey floundering.

A person familiar with the production of the show said Carey was the only performer to use a stand-in for her rehearsal.

The person said all of the monitors were working and no technical problems were found.