Mariah Carey blames NBC staff for leaking low-quality gig

Gilbert Carrasquillo/FilmMagic Mariah Carey performs during the 82nd Annual Rockefeller Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony at Rockefeller Focal point on Wednesday.

It’s her own fault she can’t carry a tune. But sources accurate to Mariah Carey’s widely-panned NBC tree-lighting performance at 30 Rock believe that disgruntled techies are to blame for leaking a vocals-only recording of her woeful Wednesday night appearance. Their motive? Revenge!

As Confidenti@l reported Wednesday, production workers attached to the NBC broadcast were upset that Carey kept them waiting three hours in the winter cold Tuesday night, only to blow off a taping of her Christmas performance that was intended to air during Wednesday night’s broadcast.

The network and the diva were left with no choice but to take their chances with a live performance of Carey’s 1994 classic “All I want for Christmas.” Show producers did their best to cover her appalling appearance with sophisticated audio mixing that seemingly took benefit of good backup singers and musicians as well as the audience cheering. But on Thursday morning, an isolated track of Carey screeching through the holiday tune, sans musical accompaniment, hit the Internet.

“It’s really hard to leak ‘just’ audio,” snickers a source accurate to the production. “Mariah is blaming producers for leaking her audio track. She believes they did it to punish her for not showing up to taping the day before the live event!”

Carey’s reps denies any network involvement in the leaked audio and tells us that because Mariah used a wireless mic anyone in attendance could’ve recorded the isolated track. She added, “She performed perfectly.”

NBC reps did not answer to a request for note.