Mariah Carey has struggled to hold back tears while performing her hit Hero at a festive concert.

The All I Want For Christmas Is You singer was performing at the Beacon Theatre show in New York City when she broke down, wiping away her tears with her long black gloves. According to the Daily Mail, Mariah also lost her shoe, and suffered a further glitch when her microphone pack fell off her gown.

“Really?” she asked her audience. “I’m sorry – cut!”

It has been a difficult year for the 44-year-old singer, who split from husband Nick Cannon in August.

Mariah on stage at the Beacon Theatre
Mariah on stage at the Beacon Theatre (Charles Sykes/Invision)

The singer performed Hero alongside Christmas songs such as Hark The Herald Angels Sing and Silent Night. Mariah has previously released two Christmas albums and told the crowd: “I love Christmas. I think [the albums] are some of my best work.”

There was pressure on Mariah to return to form after her performance was criticised at the recent Rockefeller Centre tree lighting ceremony earlier this month. When stripped of backing singers and music, a recording of her vocals from the event apparently showed she struggled to hit some of the higher notes and seemed to be out of breath.

Mariah does have one reason to be cheerful during the holiday season, as her 1994 hit All I Want For Christmas Is You could end up in the Christmas top 10 for the first time in seven years, after it was streamed 861,000 times last week.