For each outspoken critic of Mariah Carey's disastrous December 31 performance on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve (Jenny McCarthyThe New Yorker and Mariah, herself account for some), there's at least one icon in Mimi's corner: Marie Osmond.

On last night's (January 3) Access Hollywood LiveOsmond very adamantly empathized with Carey and chided viewers who delighted in her struggle.

“I think people enjoy seeing people have problems, which is kind of sad, but it’s kind of where we are,” she said. “First of all, high-five to her for not walking offstage.”

Osmond pointed out that there's no recovering from tech issues during live performances, and said unless you've walked a mile in a performer's shoes, you should keep your mouth shut.

“When you can't hear, you can't hear," she said. "I don’t care what you think. People think you can hear. You don’t know what to sing to. You don't know what pitch to sing in, and they go, ‘You know, it was lip-synched.’”

Finally, in the event it Mimi's was meant to be lip-synched, Osmond delivered a walloping reality check:

“Just so you know, most of those big shows are [lip-synched] because they don’t want a mishap, and they want to make sure that everything is right,” she said. “Do you know what I'm saying?…And so she was in a really bad predicament. I think she gave it her best shot, and she's gotten a lot of publicity from it, so, awesome.”

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