Mariah Carey is in a ticket-related legal battle, as the promoters related to a pair of canceled 2016 concerts in Argentina and Chile have sued the diva, claiming that she cancelled the shows at the last minute due to poor sales for shows in Brazil, then claimed the cancellations were due to the promoters failing to pay her. The lawsuit comes as a counter-suit to one filed earlier by Carey’s representation citing their failure to pay and resulting damage to her brand.
According to TMZ, the promoter, Fenix, filed documents claiming that they had paid the singer nearly 75% of the $703,100 bill due for the performances. That met with standard procedure based on prior deals with the singer. Fenix believes low ticket sales at three shows in Brazil led her camp to cancel the two shows it was producing in the neighboring countries as a way to save face, then defamed the company in the resulting tweet blaming them for the cancellation – reaching her audience of some 17 million followers.
Devastated my shows in Chile, Argentina & Brazil had to be cancelled. My fans deserve better than how some of these promoters treated them. https://t.co/zuEXQL12Ek
— Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) October 26, 2016
The concerts in question were scheduled to take place in 2016.
If the claims that shows were canceled due to the poor movement of tickets sound familiar, that’s because the singer’s 2017 tour saw several cancellations, rumored to be for the same reasons. Officially, the reason given for the first few dates of her “All I Want for Christmas is You” tour – in Canada and New York – was a respiratory infection.
A piece on BET.com also brought up the recent series of high profile public gaffes by the 47-year-old. Where she built a career on having one of the most powerful voices in the business, Carey has had some disastrous performances, most notably an embarrassing showing at the 2016-17 New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, where the singer removed her earpiece and walked around the stage without singing during a medley of some of her hits. She blamed Dick Clark Productions for the mistake, saying she could not hear the backup vocals and therefore couldn’t perform during the live event. Ryan Seacrest, who took over as host of that program from Clark, pushed back on multiple occasions against the diva’s claims.
Currently, Mariah Carey has just four dates on the tour schedule displayed on MariahCarey.com. All are in October, beginning with a show on the 7th at Auckland, New Zealand’s Spark Arena, followed by three shows in six days in Australia from the 10-14th.