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MARIAH CAREY’S DRUNKEN ACCEPTANCE SPEECH: Plus, singer rumored to play mom of Vanessa Hudgens in new film.

January 7, 2010

     *The Internet was flooded yesterday with footage of a tipsy Mariah Carey accepting her Breakthrough Actress award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival Tuesday night.      

       Rewarded for her performance in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” the diva teetered to the stage in a skin-tight, black-beaded full-length Herve Leger gown and gave a long, rambling speech.

 

       After hesitating for a few seconds, she looked to the ceiling, sighed and said, “Please forgive me, because I’m a little bit, um …” An audience member finished the sentence for her with an obscenity, to which Carey replied, “Yeah!” adding a long, hearty laugh. “Oooooooh, my goodness!” she bellowed.         

       Flanked by her presenter, “Precious” director Lee Daniels, Mariah continued to ramble on about the first time she read “Push,” meeting author Sapphire, and about meeting one of the night’s other honorees, Academy Award-winner Helen Mirren, whom Daniels said turned down the “Precious” role.      

       In the midst of praising Daniels’ work, Carey spontaneously burst into applause. “Sorry,” she told Daniels. “Sometimes I get a little …” Carey then stopped cold to snap her fingers, then added “… you know, difficult.” And then she giggled again.

 

       Carey then tried to explain how Daniels directed her to play the part, but couldn’t come up with the words. She motioned to her face and said, “What do you call it?” When Daniels said he told her to remove her makeup, she said, “You could take my makeup off and I don’t look like that (expletive) from the thing,” referring to her “Precious” character. “Oh, God,” Daniels moaned, turning away from Carey.      

       A full minute before Carey and Daniels finally left the stage, the audience had begun to applaud them off. “I thank you all for all listening to my little spiel,” Carey said, wearily, “and God bless you.”      

       Seconds later, host Mary Hart did her best to bring the ceremony back to Earth. “Who says we don’t have fun here?” Hart asked, with a huge smile.  Before handing out a music award to songwriter-producer T Bone Burnett, actor Sean Penn quipped, “Think anything’s going to make YouTube tonight?” [Watch below.]