Nick Cannon Weighs in on Mariah Carey's New Year's Eve Performance: 'She Got a Little Flustered'

Cannon said his ex "got a little flustered."

ByABC News
January 16, 2017, 10:07 AM

— -- Nick Cannon has an interesting theory about why Mariah Carey's performance on "New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest" was less than perfect.

"I'm a conspiracy theorist. The government did that. They set her up," he quipped during an episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," which airs today.

Still, in all seriousness, Carey's ex-husband said that anything can happen during live television.

The two split in August 2014, but have 5-year-old twins together.

"Anyone who knows about performing and having inner-ear [monitors] and stuff, things like that can go wrong on live television," he explained. "I do live television all the time ... so when there are people in your ear saying things and stuff, I think she got a little flustered."

Cannon, 36, continued, "But being the diva that she is, she said, 'I'm just going to walk around and pose for seven minutes.' And like Ryan Seacrest says, she can do no wrong. So she worked through it."

Reps for Carey, 46, said her performance during "New Year's Rockin' Eve" had technical difficulties because her "earpiece was not working."

A rep for Dick Clark Productions said in a statement: "In very rare instances there are, of course, technical errors that can occur with live television, however, an initial investigation has indicated that DCP had no involvement in the challenges associated with Ms. Carey's New Year's Eve performance."

During the wide-ranging interview on "Ellen," Cannon also explained his most recent hospitalization, which kept him in the hospital on Christmas.

The "Chi-raq" actor has been open about his struggles with lupus and confirmed that he had to undergo five blood transfusions after a mix-up with blood- thinner medication.

"I had medication issues," he admitted. "It was definitely life-threatening, but once I got to the hospital, the great doctors at Cedars[-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles] got it all in order, but I had too much medicine going on."

"Seventy percent of the blood ended up going to one of my arms," Cannon continued. "This arm was like Popeye's, so I kind of knew something was wrong but then once I got the hospital, we got it all in order and got my levels back together."

Now, Cannon said he's trying to maintain health the "holistic" way through a number of methods suggested to him by his friend Howard Stern. One of those methods includes meditating.

"It's working. I feel at one," Cannon said.