[WATCH] Did Mariah Carey Lip Synch Her Way Through Her ‘American Idol’ Performance?

Did Mariah Carey pull a Beyonce? Last week, before declaring Candice Glover season 12 ‘American Idol’ winner, the 43-year-old performed a medley of hits including ‘Hero,’ ‘Make it Happen,’ ‘Vision of Love,’ and her newest single penned and produced by Miguel, ‘Beautiful.’ Quickly after the performance, fans and critics began to speculate that the superstar was lip-syncing.  Several tweets echoed disappointment:

Disappointed in @MariahCarey and her lip syncing on the show and as a JUDGE! More disappointed that the @AmericanIdol show allowed it!”

Mariah Carey was lip syncing last night and still sounded horrible…how TF?”

Reps from Mariah’s camp insisted the performance was live in a statement to Entertainment Tonight:

“No, she did not lip-sync! She sang 3x and even sang additional songs for fans in between [commercials.]”

In an exclusive interview with Radar Online, an anonymous Hollywood music producer and engineer explained:

It’s a tough call. At around 2:15 to 2:21 in the clip she appears to be out of sync with the audio. That’s the one spot I think could be the giveaway that she’s lip syncing. Her performance is so complex that I would think it would be hard to not make a lot more mistakes and it would be more obvious if she was lip syncing.But maybe she’s just really good at that as well as singing.It’s hard for me to be sure one way or another with this one.

Did she or didn’t she lip sync? And does it really matter? Peep the video below.

‘Beautiful’ is currently number two on the Billboard R & B charts and has sold over 100,000 copies.

[Daily Mail, Radar]

-@twaneetaw