Longtime professional wrestling referee Earl Hebner has come out of the shadows to admit his role in the disastrous “screwjob” of pop singer Mariah Carey in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

Hebner issued a statement this morning revealing that he cut the audio feed to Carey’s in-ear monitors, making it impossible for her to convincingly lip-sync to her own song.

“I was just following orders,” said Hebner, echoing his excuse from the infamous Montreal Screwjob, in which he prematurely ended a match to help Shawn Michaels defeat Bret Hart.

According to witnesses at Times Square, professional wrestling mogul Vince McMahon was spotted just offstage hollering “cut the damn audio,” which caused Hebner to kill the feed to Carey’s earpieces.

Carey then wandered around the stage dumbstruck, ad-libbing and listlessly dancing in her sequinned unitard before spelling the letters W-C-W in the air with her finger.

McMahon reportedly ordered Hebner to sabotage the concert after Carey refused to sing McMahon’s favorite song, Stand Back.

McMahon denies the allegations, insisting that “Mariah screwed Mariah.”