Mariah Carey admits being drunk

Mariah Carey has admitted having "splashes of champagne" before her loony acceptance speech at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Carey, who appeared dazed and incohent while accepting her Breakthrough Artist award for her role in Precious, gave a long, rambling acceptance speech at the awards on Wednesday and punctuated it with bouts of crazed giggling.

At the People’s Choice Awards, where she was named favourite R&B artist, Carey jokingly blamed her performance on presenter and Precious director Lee Daniels.

"The thing is me and Lee hadn’t see each other in a long time, and then he was presenting my award, so he starts off immediately with inside jokes," Carey said backstage at the People’s Choice Awards, where she was named favourite R&B artist.

"We had splashes of champagne, and I love Lee but he's a bad influence," the singer said.

The 39-year-old says she was rushing to receive the honour and didn't eat enough. She also says people shouldn't take the speech too seriously.

"If people don't understand me and think I'm just like this girl that stands by a microphone and sings Hero, then they're definitely not going to get me," she explained.

"But if people knew me better, they would understand I have a sense of humour, and basically that's what gets me through life."

During the speech, Carey rambled on about various topics, including meeting one of the night's other honorees, Academy Award-winner Helen Mirren.

A full minute before Carey and Daniels finally left the stage, the audience had begun to applaud them off.

Carey didn't return to the stage but her presence was felt for the remainder of the night.

Before handing out a music award, actor Sean Penn quipped, "Think anything's going to make YouTube tonight?" 

Watch Mariah Carey's speech below:

- AP