She didn't lose her cool or go down for the count. Instead, Mariah Carey took an onstage near-tumble and turned it into a clever comedy act with host Jay Leno last night.
After Leno introduced the pop diva, she came out in sky-high heels and a cleavage-baring black mini. Blowing kisses to her fans, Carey then lost her trademark wiggle in a wobbly step that almost had her on her keester.
Recovering nicely with the comedian, Carey bantered about her bumble with Leno in the now hot-with-embarrassment seat.
"You know when I tripped, I had choreographed that earlier," she began. " It was a plan to make Jay nervous that he was going to get sued."
She was apparently on a roll once she warmed up, finally explaining the cause of her troubles.
"This is what happened backstage, my strap came loose," she said, pointing a lacquered fingernail at her strappy black stilettos. "This is the cause of the whole thing."
The interview was revealing in that Carey opened up about her marriage to Nick Cannon and joked about what she brought to the marriage, a tendency for tardiness.
"We went to a house that we'd bought in the Bahamas and got married on the beach, of course I was late," she said.
She later showed Leno how to correctly apply her perfume in a subtly sexy act.