Singer/actress Mariah Carey admitted to being a little "drunk" during her acceptance speech at the Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala on January 5, 2010. Carey, who was honored with an award for Breakthrough Actress Performance of the year for the movie Precious, spoke slowly, proclaimed her love to the presenter and seemed to lose track of what she was about to say. She then began to apologize for her behavior by saying, "please forgive me because I'm a little bit...", to which a person in the audience yelled "drunk!" and Carey laughed and said, "yeah." She then wailed "Ohhhhh my goodness."

After Carey's acceptance speech, several bloggers and Twitter users wrote about the incident. Actress Diablo Cody joked "Mariah Carey just gave the most awesome acceptance speech of all time."http://entertainment.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/01/06/mariah-carey-acts-strangely-during-award-acceptance-speech/ Shortly after, the video of Mariah Carey's drunk acceptance speech made its way on to the Internet.

In the past, there have been several instances where Mariah Carey was rumored to be drunk in public. One was the 1999 MTV VMA Awards after party which aired on MTV following the ceremony.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOQrDywNM_k In January 2009, The New York Daily News reported that Carey was so intoxicated at Sundance that as she was dancing, "She had four handlers standing close to her, so that no matter which way she started to tip over, they could prop her back up." Carey's representative denied the report that she was drunk.http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/01/19/2009-01-19_gratin_jim_carreys_birthday_sundance.html

In October 2009 the New York Post gossip column Page Six quoted a witness who claimed to have seen Carey at a restaurant in New York City. The witness said that Carey was "with her brother and a few bodyguards and was quite out of it. When she exited her black Maybach, she tripped twice and had to grab hold of one of her guards so she wouldn't fall. She ordered a bottle of champagne but she could barely speak." Page Six also noted that another source said that Carey "was probably wobbly because she was wearing 7-inch Louboutins" and "had just completed 18 hours of press."http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/blame_mariah_shoes_c7vv0SxMXlRWcAo6ECFGSI