Carson Daly has come under fire for his “horrible” treatment of Mariah Carey in a resurfaced now-viral clip from TRL in 2001.
The 55-year-old “All I Want For Christmas” singer seemingly made a surprise appearance with an ice cream cart on MTV’s Total Request Live in 2001, with the now 51-year-old presenter making out like he was shocked and disturbed to see her there. Throughout their interaction, Daly insinuated that Carey was acting irrationally, all while maintaining that he did not expect to see her on the show.
Resurfaced ‘TRL’ Clip Shows Carson Daly Treating Mariah Carey Badly
The Queen of Christmas, who was dressed in an oversized purple T-shirt that said ‘Loverboy’ on it, made a ‘surprise’ appearance on the show while singing her song “Loverboy” and pushing an ice cream cart, with Daly making out like he was shocked to see her there.
“What are you doing?” Daly asks the six-time Grammy winner after she stops singing, after which Carey starts taking off her T-shirt to reveal a much racier outfit which consisted of some tiny gold hotpants and a strappy top. “What are you doing?” Daly asks again, and then says to the cameras: “Mariah Carey is stripping on TRL right now.” He then joked: “Is it my birthday and I didn’t know about it?”
After fans watched the resurfaced clip, they immediately slammed the presenter for insinuating that the ultra-glamorous singer was mentally unstable at the time, as well as mentioning that this behavior wouldn’t be allowed to happen today.
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Reddit Comments
A Reddit thread featuring a short clip of the aforementioned interaction was captioned: "Can someone explain why Mariah Carey's ice cream cart appearance on TRL was considered a 'mental breakdown' in 2001?" And fellow Redditors were quick to provide answers in the comments!
"If I'm remembering correctly from her memoir, Carson essentially set her up because they had arranged the appearance together... But when she actually arrived, he pretended that she was crashing the set and it made her look unhinged for 'randomly' showing up with the ice cream. Lambs, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong," wrote one Mariah fan.
"Lol the funniest thing is how anyone could think her lugging a giant ice cream cart up a very tall building is something she could just do on a whim," replied one fan. "I mean… are YOU gonna stop 00's Mariah walking around with an ice cream cart on her way up to the TRL set?" asked another, as someone else replied: "I wouldn't stop todays Mariah from doing well anything. She is the pop princess that can do as she pleases."
Others didn't really see the funny side. "I had no idea this was a setup 'til this moment! Wow I vividly remember this and Mariah was definitely made to look unhinged for this," recalled one fan. "God I remember this time, the way everybody treated her was horrible. The media were out of control," slammed another, as someone else thought: "This absolutely wouldn't fly today and he'd be posting an apology online faster than Mariah's 'striptease.'"
"It was a pre-planned stunt that Carson decided to sabotage by pretending Mariah shouldn't have even been there," remembered another fan, adding: "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."
"Carson was such a douche for setting her up. I actually think Mariah came off as cute here," added another fan. "The amount of [expletive] Carson's gotten away with. He should have been canceled long ago," slammed another, while another fan thought: "This is so cruel."
