Carson Daly is the latest celeb on the Internet’s s**t list after a questionable TRL clip has resurfaced.
The year is 2001… Mariah Carey crashes a live taping of MTV‘s Total Request Live with an ice cream cart in tow. She’s wearing an oversized Loverboy t-shirt to promote her song, which she takes off to reveal a tank top and gold short shorts.
She seemingly catches Carson off guard, who says he “didn’t know” about her appearance and harshly blasts her for “stripping” on live TV and saying she “lost her mind” … And pretty much EVERYONE in the world believes him. Just watch the clip for yourself (below):
She was said to have had a “breakdown” not long after, and her reputation never fully recovered. But what if that widely accepted narrative actually WASN’T the truth? Well, that’s what fans are saying in 2024!
Related: Nick Cannon Gets Real About His Massive Insecurities In Marriage To Mariah Carey
With the throwback clip resurfacing on social media present day, fans are demanding an apology from Carson for his “horrible” treatment of the Emotions singer — as the whole interaction was actually a planned event! Don’t believe it? Well, it turns out Mariah said so herself!
That’s right, in her 2020 memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey, the hitmaker revealed that while it was a “highly unrehearsed” moment, it was one that had been planned with Carson… But he made the bewildering decision to act as if it wasn’t. She wrote:
“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.”
She called the moment a “stunt gone awry,” comparing it to when a stand-up comedian bombs on stage:
“All performers bomb, but my bombing set off a chain reaction that placed a target on my back.”
After the incident, Mariah received so much flack that her publicist told everyone she had an “emotional and physical breakdown” after the taping and had to check into a rehab facility because of it.
How awful, right?? All because the TRL host decided to twist the narrative in a certain way so the world would laugh AT Mariah, not with her. Awful! But while he may have gotten away with it over two decades ago, fans are now holding him accountable! On social media, netizens wrote things like:
“God I remember this time, the way everybody treated her was horrible. The media were out of control.”
“He behaved like a real pig and never paid the price”
“i hate that man with the passion of 7 burning suns.”
“the way she was considered psycho for this”
“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.’ 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. I’m so glad she came back with Emancipation and proved everyone wrong”
What are YOUR thoughts, Perezcious readers?? Do you remember this infamous MTV moment? Do you think Carson owes Mimi an apology? Sound OFF in the comments down below.
[Images via Mariah Carey/YouTube & Jody Cortes/WENN]
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