Mariah Carey red-faced as mic malfunctions in New Year's show

Mariah Carey is surely hoping that 2017 goes better than her 2016 ended.

The pop music diva endured an embarrassing technical meltdown during a New Year's Eve show witnessed by thousands in New York's Times Square and millions more across the United States.

The huge malfunction happened during her performance on "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest," billed as "the last big performance of 2016 by Mariah Carey."

Carey is one of the world's biggest-selling recording artists, with a boatload of Grammys and other accolades to her credit.

But the sound system malfunctioned badly late Saturday from the opening notes of her performance of "Auld Lang Syne," leaving Carey flummoxed and visibly defeated.

Wearing a flesh-tone, sheer sequined dress with plunging neckline and stiletto platform shoes, Carey paced along the front of the stage while her backup dancers performed acrobatic moves, in what was supposed to have been the evening's headlining event minutes before the ball dropped to mark the start of the new year.

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"Well, Happy New Year. We can't hear," the 46-year-old star told the crowd as her entourage of male backup dancers continued their performance.

"I'm going to let the audience sing, OK?" she says, as the high-spirited crowd went on without her.

At one point, an audio track of Carey singing could be heard, even though she clearly was not singing.

"That was - I'm leaving," the singer said in the microphone as the first number ended.

She stayed - but things did not go better during her performance of "Emotions," one of her biggest hits, and she halfheartedly mimed her way through the number.

Twitter gleefully erupted in Schadenfreude over Carey's woes.

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"Even Milli Vanilli is embarrassed by Mariah Carey's debacle," tweeted @JimmyTraina, referring to an earlier singing duo cruelly mocked for its failed lip synching efforts.

"Mariah Carey just summed up 2016 in a nutshell," wrote another tweeter, @MatthewLush.

The woeful performance comes at an unfortunate time. Carey's career recently had been on the ascent.

In addition to the high-profile New Year's Eve gig, she has been appearing in a new reality TV show "Mariah's World," billed by the E! television network as a show that goes "beyond the flashbulbs and fame and into the private life of one of the most celebrated pop divas of all time."

Hours after Saturday's disastrous outing, Carey posted a rueful, but somewhat hopeful, tweet.

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"Shit happens," she wrote on Twitter Sunday, with a frownie face emoticon.

"Have a happy and healthy new year everybody! Here's to making more headlines in 2017."