As a musician, there's not much you can do wrong when it comes to performing and pleasing your fans. There is one thing, though, and that's lip-syncing. Any artist who is caught lip-syncing is extremely disappointing. When you spend a lot of money to get tickets to see your favorite musician, you expect them to put on an amazing show, not lip-sync to the album track.
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There have been many instances over the years in which some big-name musicians were caught lip-syncing during a performance. While some had good reasons, others have been guilty of doing it on multiple occasions, and others have had their careers come to an end because of it. Moral of the story is: don't lip-sync.
9 Britney Spears
Britney Spears has been scrutinized for years as to whether or not she sings live or lip syncs during a performance. However, there have been quite a few times where Britney was caught singing over a track, or not singing at all. One particular incident in which Britney got caught was at her Las Vegas residency where she sang a new version of her song "Perfume." When it came time for Britney to sing, the crowd didn't hear Britney, but rather Sia. The song "Perfume" was written by Sia, and she recorded a demo version of the song, and that's what was played during the show. Awkward!
8 Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan is another celebrity who was guilty of being caught lip-syncing. When Lindsay performed on Good Morning America, fans were quick to notice that Lindsay wasn't exactly singing on her own. When she pulled her microphone away for a moment, her voice still continued to come out through the speakers.
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According to Lindsay and her reps, though, that she was actually singing live, and what you saw and heard was nothing more than backing vocals to support Lindsay as she performed. A lot of artists do use backing vocals to help them sing live and sound better, however, they don't usually perform the whole song for them.
Rascal Flatts
It's not just solo artists and pop divas who are accused of lip-syncing — bands are just as guilty. Rascal Flatts has been guilty of lip-syncing during a live performance and has even had to apologize and offer up an explanation. During a performance at the ACM Fan Jam, fans noticed that their performance of "Rewind" sounded exactly like it did on the album. According to the band, they had no choice but to lip-sync as lead singer Gary LeVox had lost his voice due to having to sing in a lot of performances prior to this one. The band didn't want to cancel last minute, so the only option was to lip-sync.
7 Beyoncé
Beyoncé has an amazing voice. She wouldn't be as famous as she is if she couldn't sing, that's a fact. When she performed the National Anthem at the Inauguration of President Barack Obama. Fans noticed that when she performed the anthem, she was actually lip-syncing. At a press conference after the Inauguration, Beyoncé admitted to lip-syncing, something that she didn't normally do. According to the singer, she's an extreme perfectionist and she didn't have the proper time to rehearse, so she opted to not sing at all.
6 Katy Perry
Katy Perry is yet another pop star that has fallen victim to being caught lip-syncing. When Katy was set to perform at the NRJ music awards in Cannes a track started playing over her voice, and to make matters worse, it wasn't even the correct verse of the song. Katy held up the microphone and her lips were moving, but the wrong words were playing.
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Katy had to awkwardly stop the performance, as ask to restart again, this time the words matching up with her mouth. After the whole incident, the NRJ Awards issued an apology, issuing a statement that it wasn't Katy's fault, and the error was on their end, as they shouldered most of the blame.
5 Cher
When Cher appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show with her mom, the two performed together, but the performance was clearly lip-synced. It sparked a lot of outrage amongst her fans, wondering why Cher would lip-sync. The two were on the show to promote her mother, Georgia Holt's album. Georgia, being 87 years old at the time, had been fighting off a bout of pneumonia. Because of this, Cher said that they did not want to take a chance, and decided that it would be best for them to perform the duet over a track.
4 50 Cent
While performing at the BET Awards, rapper 50 Cent came under fire for lip-syncing his performance. He was performing his song "Amusement Park" he completely went off script, letting the backing track play, and instead, going through the crowd. People were confused. Did he forget the words? Or did he just want everyone to know that he was lip-syncing and using a track? Regardless, he later said that he blamed it on the fact that it didn't go the way he planned when he rehearsed it.
3 Milli Vanilli
Milli Vanilli caused a lot of controversies when it was discovered that they were lip-syncing. It turned out that it wasn't Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus singing, instead it was two uncredited musicians. It caused an outrage, and even the Grammys took back their Best New Artist award. They faced a lot of backlash, and soon became the poster children for what not to do in the music industry, and how frowned upon it is to lip-sync and completely fake it. They're still talked about decades after the fact.
2 Ashlee Simpson
Back in 2004, Ashlee Simpson made headlines everywhere after her horrible lip-sync debacle on Saturday Night Live. As a performer on the show, Ashlee first sang her song "Pieces of Me," and everything was fine. When it was time for her second song, however, her vocals for "Pieces of Me" started to play, proving that she hadn't been singing at all. Not sure of what to do and in a panic, Ashlee started to do an extremely awkward hoedown before running off stage. She later blamed using backing vocals on her severe acid reflux. Yikes!
1 Mariah Carey
We all remember Mariah Carey's lip-syncing incident on New Year's Eve 2016, right? Mariah was set to perform on Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve With Ryan Seacrest when everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. When the song went to start, the vocal track went haywire and it completely messed up Mariah's lip-sync, as she never matched up with the track. She tried to find her place but it didn't work, making the situation that much worse. Of course, Mariah being Mariah was incredibly upset and embarrassed over what happened.
