From Mariah Carey to Britney Spears, the live onstage meltdown is as much a part of pop culture lore now as, say, the celebrities themselves. Take a look back with Us Weekly at some of the biggest onstage meltdowns in recent history.
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Biggest Onstage Meltdowns Ever!
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Biggest Onstage Meltdowns Ever!
From Mariah Carey to Britney Spears, the live onstage meltdown is as much a part of pop culture lore now as, say, the celebrities themselves. Take a look back with Us Weekly at some of the biggest onstage meltdowns in recent history.
Credit:
Biggest Onstage Meltdowns Ever!
From Mariah Carey to Britney Spears, the live onstage meltdown is as much a part of pop culture lore now as, say, the celebrities themselves. Take a look back with Us Weekly at some of the biggest onstage meltdowns in recent history.
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Mariah Carey (New Year’s Eve, 2016)
Not a great way to start the year! Mariah Carey was “mortified” after her New Year’s Eve performance in NYC’s Times Square turned into a disastrous affair. The “I Don’t” singer was caught lip-synching and seemingly forgot the words to her own songs, causing fans to jeer at her online. At one point during the performance, she seemed to blame her inability to sing on a faulty earpiece and stopped trying altogether. The next day, she tweeted, “S--t happens.”
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Billie Joe Armstrong (September 2012)
When the countdown clock started ticking during Green Day’s performance at the iHeartRadio music festival in September 2012, so did lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong’s patience. The frontman began yelling at the festival organizers while on stage, saying, “You’re kidding me. I’m not f--king Justin Bieber, you motherf--kers. Let me show you what one minute f--king means.” Two days later, he checked himself into a rehab center for substance-abuse treatment.
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Justin Bieber (September 2012)
Rough day? Justin Bieber kicked off his Believe tour in Arizona in September 2012, but his performance made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Partway into the evening, the “Where Are U Now” singer doubled over and threw up on stage in a moment captured by thousands of cameras. Later that night, he joked on Twitter, “Milk was a bad choice,” a quote from Will Ferrell’s character in the 2004 flick Anchorman.
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Caleb Followill (July 2011)
True rock star status. When the Kings of Leon took to the stage at a Dallas show in 2011, their fans were expecting a rousing show of head-banging beats and lead singer Caleb Followill’s trademark voice. What they got instead was a drunk Followill who yelled at his road crew, made faces through several songs, and then finally told the crowd, “I’m going to go backstage and vomit and then play three more songs.” He never returned.
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John Mayer (February 2010)
John Mayer got choked up apologizing to his fans and the world at large during a Nashville show in February 2010 following his controversial interview with Playboy magazine. “In the quest to be clever, I completely forgot about the people that I love and that love me,” he told the audience at one point in the night, referring to his sexist and racist comments in the much-talked about interview.
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Chris Brown (June 2010)
Too little, too late? Chris Brown broke down on stage at the BET Awards in June 2010 while performing a tribute to the late King of Pop, Michael Jackson. The R&B singer got through some of his bigger dance numbers but crumbled to the floor during his emotional rendition of “Man in the Mirror.”
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Whitney Houston (February 2010)
Not in the best shape. Whitney Houston had trouble hitting some of the higher notes of her biggest hits, including “I Will Always Love You” and “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” during her show in Brisbane, Australia, in 2010. Unbeknownst to her fans then, she would die of an overdose just two years later, in February 2012.
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Ne-Yo (July 2009)
Despite his fans’ encouragement, Ne-Yo had trouble carrying on with his show in Manchester, England, in July 2009, breaking down in tears and finally having to tell the audience, “I’ve never done this before. I’ve never not completed a show.” He thanked the crowd for “bearing with” him and promising his fans that he “will be back.”
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Britney Spears (September 2007)
Not quite the comeback she was hoping for. Britney Spears took to the stage at the 2007 VMAs in September following a litany of headline-making behaviors, and fans were quick to call out the pop star’s sedated, underwhelming performance of her hit “Gimme More,” in which she danced minimally on stage and seemed to be badly lip-synching to her own song.
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Ryan Adams (October 2002)
Ryan Adams is not amused. The singer-songwriter had a notorious meltdown in October 2002 during a show in Nashville when someone jokingly kept yelling for him to play “Summer of ’69,” a popular hit not by him, but by Canadian rocker Bryan Adams. According to eyewitness accounts, Adams cursed out the heckler, demanded that the house lights be turned on, gave the man a $40 refund for his ticket and kicked him out of the venue.
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Ashlee Simpson (October 2004)
Lip-synch fail! Ashlee Simpson was left in the lurch on Saturday Night Live in October 2004, when the background tracks to her single “Pieces of Me” began playing while she still had the microphone down at her side. The flustered singer did a silly jig on stage before bolting backstage. Later on during the show, she blamed her band for the mishap, but owned up to lip-synching the next week.
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Axl Rose (July 1991)
No photo means no photo! Axl Rose made headlines in July 1991 when he freaked out after a fan pointed a camera toward him while he and his band, Guns N’ Roses, performed at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre (then called the Riverport Amphitheater) in Maryland Heights, Missouri. The rocker stopped singing in the middle of the chorus after spotting the offending fan and jumped into the crowd to confiscate the camera himself after security failed to deal with the person. He then slammed his microphone on the stage and stormed off.
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