Celebrity TikTok Videos That Set The Internet On Fire
TikTok has been a star maker for content creators who make it to the "For You" page and go viral, with reality show star Charli D'Amelio and "He's All That" actor Addison Rae being two of the social media app's biggest success stories. It's also attracted established celebrities, some of whom are prolific posters who have mastered using TikTok to connect with their fans on a deeper level. In an interview with Billboard, "Good as Hell" hitmaker Lizzo explained why she finds it more appealing than other social media platforms. "I love TikTok, and I love being as outrageous as I could be," she said. "I used to love pictures and all that, but now I really get a chance to talk to people."
Jason Derulo is another singer who is a big fan of the app, and his creative videos have helped him earn a huge fan following. "I did have a feeling that it was going to be the next big thing," he said during a 2020 appearance on "The Carlos Watson Show." However, he admitted that he was surprised at how successful his own content became.
There are also celebs who enjoy TikTok as entertainment but don't create videos themselves. On "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," actor Jennifer Lawrence confessed that TikTok is the app on her phone that she uses the most, so the "Don't Look Up" star has probably seen some of these videos that set the internet ablaze.
Madonna maintains her ability to cause a stir
The Material Girl is living in a much different world from the one that embraced her provocative nature when she first burst onto the pop music scene in the '80s. Now Madonna can get tongues wagging without recording a song or appearing on MTV — social media allows her to shock and awe whenever she likes.
Surprisingly, one of the "Vogue" singer's most popular TikToks doesn't show her letting her body move to the music. In October 2022, she shared a video of herself crumpling up a pair of pink underwear and trying to toss them into a wastebasket. She added a caption that read, "If I miss, I'm Gay." When her lingerie landed on the floor, she dramatically raised one arm up in the air. The video sparked a discussion about whether she was queerbaiting or coming out. "When your career is now well and truly over ... play the gay card," tweeted one person. "Madonna has been gay for like 40 years. She's done nothing knew, but trying to get back in the mainstream," another wrote.
It was 1991 when Madonna helped cement her spot as a LGBTQ icon by telling Advocate, "I think everybody has a bisexual nature." And while discussing Madge's TikTok, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (aka Cassandra Peterson), told TMZ that the "Justify My Love" singer once made a move on her girlfriend. "I think Madonna has always said she's pretty fluid," she added.
Jojo Siwa threatens Candace Cameron Bure's wholesome image
Former "Dance Moms" star Jojo Siwa doesn't have to do much to impress her TikTok followers — the hairbow mogul took her hair down for the "Wipe it Down" challenge in 2020, and they lost their minds.
She surprised her followers again in 2022 by spilling some piping hot tea about another celebrity with a wholesome image: "Full House" star Candace Cameron Bure. In a since-deleted TikTok, Siwa participated in a rapid-fire Q&A, per BuzzFeed. One of the prompts that flashed up on the screen asked her to identify the "Rudest celebrity I've met," and she responded by holding up her phone to reveal a photo of Bure. "Jojo Siwa exposing Candace Cameron Bure was not on my 2022 bingo card," read one tweet about the random revelation. "JoJo Siwa vs Candace Cameron Bure is the fight I never knew I needed," wrote another person.
On Instagram, Bure revealed that she had no clue what Siwa had against her until she reached out to the younger celeb. Bure learned that she had snubbed Siwa at an event when the then-11-year-old requested a photo with her. "She apologized, and we talked. It was cool," Siwa later told Page Six. She also elaborated on why Bure's behavior bothered her so much, saying that the actor happily took photos with other people after turning her down. Siwa pointed out that Bure left this detail out of her own account of their encounter.
Drew Barrymore finds getting drenched delightful
Drew Barrymore didn't have to spill any tea or stir up controversy to go viral — all she had to do was laugh in the rain. For a July 2022 TikTok, she filmed herself gleefully frolicking in a downpour. After lifting her face to the sky and removing her droplet-covered glasses, she enthusiastically urged her followers, "Whenever you can, go out into the rain, do not miss the opportunity!"
Something about her pure joy resonated with viewers. "The happiness here is just making me unbelievably happy too," read one response. "Your inner child is so happy and it makes me happy you get to spoil that part of you that needed it," another person chimed in.
There were a number of references to Barrymore's childlike delight, a remarkable trait for her to possess after her traumatic early years. The "E.T." star spent time in rehab when she was just 12 years old and once told The Guardian, "I really had a fear that I was going to die at 25." So to many, her rain video seems to be proof that it's possible to weather the darkest of storm clouds and maintain a sunny outlook on life. But the actor told Page Six that she was surprised by the reaction her video received. She also shared an explanation for why she's a sucker for a rainy day. "Rain is for everybody," she said. "And I love things that are for everyone."
Noah Schnapp exposes Doja Cat's Stranger Things crush
After surviving Demodogs and other horrors on "Stranger Things," Noah Schnapp found himself facing a fearsome new foe on social media: Doja Cat. In a July 2022 TikTok that has since been removed, Schnapp dubbed the singer "thirsty Doja" and shared a screenshot of a private Instagram conversation they had. "Noah can u tell Joseph to hmu. Wait no. Does he have a gf?" Doja Cat wrote, referencing the "Stranger Things" newcomer she had previously tweeted a public declaration of admiration for: Joseph Quinn.
In response to her queries about Quinn, Schnapp wrote, "LMAOO slide into his DMs." When Doja Cat responded by saying that Quinn has no social media, Schnapp helpfully set her straight by sharing a link to his Instagram. But in a TikTok Live (via YouTube), Doja Cat slammed her wingman for his lack of propriety. "That's borderline snake s***," she said of Schnapp sharing their convo. Netizens debated over who was in the wrong. "Noah is 17, what did you expect," read one tweet. "I can't believe y'all acting like Doja shouldn't be upset," another person wrote.
Schnapp later spoke to Variety about his messy matchmaking fail. "I'm super unserious on social media and pretty goofy, so I posted that not thinking too much of it, but obviously it hurt her feelings," he said. He also revealed that he told Doja Cat that he was sorry for his actions, and she accepted his apology.
Kourtney Kardashian and Addison Rae's unlikely friendship
Hollywood and TikTok occasionally collide in unexpected ways, like when Kevin Bacon covered the "It's Corn" song. But corn and Bacon arguably aren't as unlikely of a pairing as Addison Rae and Kourtney Kardashian.
In 2021, Rae made a surprise appearance with Kardashian in a TikTok video. They were dressed for the classiest of sleepovers in matching silk pajamas with ostrich feather trim (Kourtney's PJs were blue; Addison's were pink), and Kourtney had a drink in hand. She lip-synced along with one of her own "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" lines: "I mean, I feel fine, I just cry myself to sleep every night." Addison mouthed Larsa Pippen's response: "That's totally normal."
Some of Kardashian's TikTok followers saw nothing abnormal about the unlikely friendship. "Addison and Kourtney are a iconic duo," wrote one fan. However, others found the age difference between the pair (21 years) a bit odd. "I'd cry myself to sleep too if I was so desperate to stay young and relevant," snarked another commenter. "What do they possibly talk about? She's closer to Masons age." As it turns out, Kardashian's son, Mason Disick, is actually a huge fan of Rae. Kardashian arranged a meeting between Mason and his TikTok idol, who ended up clicking with his hip mom. "I kind of just stuck around and we got really close," Addison said on "The Tom Ward Show." Kardashian even made a cameo in her bestie's movie, "He's All That."
Will Smith promises chaos at the Oscars
Hours before Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars in March 2022, he gave his TikTok fans a sneak peek at his snazzy suit and Jada Pinkett Smith's glamorous green gown. In the viral video, the couple struck the perfect red carpet pose before hamming it up for the camera. As they made menacing faces, a voiceover said, "Good morning, everyone. God has let me live another day, and I'm about to make it everyone's problem." Will also added a caption that read, "Me 'n @jadapinkettsmith got all dressed up to choose chaos." After he delivered on that promise, his followers returned to the clip to remark on how poorly it aged. "This was like a prophecy of what was going to happen," read one message, while more than one person remarked, "Moments before disaster."
After Will attacked Rock in response to a joke about Jada being bald, the "King Richard" star was not asked to leave. He ended up winning the best actor award, which he was allowed to accept, but he was slapped with a 10-year ban from attending future Oscars ceremonies, per People.
When Will resumed posting on TikTok after a long break, he explained why he didn't use his time on the Oscars stage to issue an apology to Rock. "I was fogged out by that point," he said. "It's all fuzzy." He also revealed that the comedian wasn't yet ready to hear him apologize in person.
Mariah Carey fans are obsessed with her possible Slim Shady shade
While participating in the "Wipe it Down" challenge in 2021, Mariah Carey flashed fans back to 2009. It was the year she took a page from the playbook of Britney Spears impersonator Eminem by dressing in drag in her "Obsessed" music video. Carey seemingly decided to channel her inner Marshall Mathers after the rapper kept insisting that the two of them had been romantically involved. On "Shade 45," Eminem claimed that he and Carey dated for around half a year, and he wasn't happy about her denials of their love connection. After he vented his frustrations in the song "Bagpipes from Baghdad," Carey's husband at the time, Nick Cannon, wrote on his blog (via Access), "Homeboy is still obsessed with my wife." And that brings us to the "Obsessed" video. To play her own stalker, Carey rocks a goatee and hoodie that makes her look an awful lot like she's imitating Slim Shady.
Now, back to the TikTok clip. It begins with Carey rocking a pink bathrobe, green face mask, and rollers in her hair. While wiping a mirror, she gets an instant glamorous makeover, utters the intro to "Obsessed," and transforms into the stalker character from the music video. Some of her followers predicted that the TikTok would reignite her feud with Eminem. "Tag me when Eminem does a diss TikTok," one fan requested. "Eminem is shaking right now," another response read.
Alicia Silverstone recreates a Clueless scene
TikTok might be a young platform in comparison to the dinosaurs that are Facebook and Twitter, but nostalgic videos can do surprisingly well on the app. When Alicia Silverstone joined TikTok, she did it in style by recreating a "Clueless" scene and going viral. In the video, the actor is rocking a plaid yellow jacket like the one her character in the movie, Cher Horowitz, picks out for her first day of school. As Gwen Stefani croons the female empowerment anthem "Just a Girl," Silverstone's strutting is interrupted by her son, Bear Blu Jarecki, putting his arm around her. She responds with some primo '90s slang: "As if!" Fans from different generations expressed their admiration in the comments, with one writing, "ICON! Also feeling so old right now!" Another message was directed at Bear: "Does he even know how FREAKING COOL his mom is?!?"
According to Silverstone, her son actually became a fan of her beloved film at a young age. "He saw Clueless when he was five, because it was on at the Hollywood [Forever] Cemetery," she told ET. "He was so young and it's not appropriate, I think, for a 5-year-old ... what he really picked up [on is] he tried to kiss me, like, passionate kisses, because that's what he saw in the movie."
Silverstone doesn't always need her son's help when she recreates "Clueless" scenes — in another TikTok, she reunited with Stacey Dash, who plays Cher's BFF Dionne.
Lea Michele gets laughs with literacy joke
It's hard to imagine anyone making it far in Hollywood without the ability to read, but some conspiracy theorists believe that Lea Michele is illiterate. Podcasters Robert Ackerman and Jaye Hunt cooked up the kooky theory, per Jezebel. In her memoir "Sorry Not Sorry," Michele's late "Glee" co-star Naya Rivera claimed that Michele disliked improvisation. Ackerman and Hunt suggested this was because she couldn't read scripts, and it made it more difficult for her to recall her memorized lines.
The bizarre rumor resurfaced on Twitter after Michele got cast as the lead in "Funny Girl," and it didn't help that her role required her to say the line, "I hadn't read many books." According to the New York Post, the Broadway audience actually laughed upon hearing the words during Michele's debut performance.
The actor decided to have a little fun with the silly speculation in a TikTok video. In it, an audio clip from "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" plays while Michele holds up her phone. "Calling Jonathan to read me the comments on my first TikTok," the caption reads. The Jonathan in question is likely Michele's BFF Jonathan Groff. In the documentary "Spring Awakening: Those You've Known," Michele reveals that she's so tight with Groff that she once showed him her ladybits when he requested to see them, per Entertainment Weekly. "He probably typed this out too," quipped one of Michele's TikTok followers. "This is funny girl," declared another fan.
Dwayne Johnson appreciates Khloe Kardashian's artificial anatomy
While documenting a visit to Madame Tussauds for his popular TikTok account, Dwayne Johnson realized that his wax figure was next to Khloé Kardashian's. In his viral video, he compares the size of his fake glutes to hers, saying of the Kardashian copy's derriere, "That's amazing." He then hilariously pretends to ask the museum if he can get his own clone's backside boosted. "Give me some glutes like that," he demands.
Madame Tussauds responded to his request with its own video of an employee crouched down behind the mock Rock while pretending to study his posterior and jotting down notes. "We will see what we can do," a voiceover says.
Kardashian also saw what the Rock cooked up, and she responded to his TikTok on her Instagram Story. "Looks like I am in INCREDIBLE company!!!" she wrote, per Page Six. "I am crying!!!" She also agreed with Johnson's assessment of the museum's work, adding, "They hooked me up." According to Us Weekly, Kardashian ensured that Madame Tussauds made her wax figure as close to anatomically correct as possible by taking measurements of over 250 different parts of her body. Some of Johnson's TikTok followers found the feelings of inadequacy that the faux Kardashian caused quite hilarious. "He wasn't happy with rock bottom," quipped one comedian. "Not Dwayne shooting his shot with Khloe's wax figure," another joked.
Lizzo's drunken Chris Evans DM pays off
Everyone has a celebrity crush or two (or more — we're not judging), but it takes a crazy level of confidence to reveal which star you adore when you're famous yourself and might actually end up interacting with them. However, Lizzo has always worn her heart on her sleeve when it comes to the man who wears a star on his chest, "Captain America" actor Chris Evans. In April 2021, she took to TikTok to confess that she had drunkenly DM'ed Evans a cryptic message composed solely of three emoji: blowing wind, a woman playing handball, and a basketball. "I know I'm not going to be able to marry him, and honestly, it hurts me to the core," she mouthed along to Tatyanna Mitchell's audio.
But the "About Damn Time" singer scored a win when Evans actually responded to her. She shared a screenshot of his hilarious message in a follow-up TikTok. "No shame in a drunk DM," he wrote. "God knows I've done worse on this app lol." This was likely a reference to Evans accidentally sharing a NSFW photo on Instagram. One response to Lizzo's TikTok read, "She's living all our dreams."
Lizzo's Evans obsession made it into her "Saturday Night Live" monologue. She joked about having no idea how a rumor that she and the actor were having a baby together got started before theorizing, "It could be the TikTok I did where I said, 'I'm pregnant with Chris Evans' baby.' It's called manifesting."
Selena Gomez refuses to suck it in
Selena Gomez has had to deal with strangers scrutinizing her body for far too long, and she admitted that she used to let it get to her during a 2015 "On Air with Ryan Seacrest" interview. But instead of giving in to pressure to look a certain way, the "Wizards of Waverly Place" star has decided to push back. For an August 2022 TikTok, she used humor to shut down her body shamers. In the video, Gomez is rocking a colorful one-piece bathing suit and lounging outdoors. She looks relaxed and unbothered until a voice is heard saying, "Suck it in." Gomez then places a hand on her stomach and defiantly lip-syncs the response, "I'm not sucking s*** in. Real stomachs is coming the f*** back, okay?"
Gomez isn't the only one who benefits from her body positivity — many of her followers applauded her for giving them a boost of confidence. "The real OG!! thank you for making me feel beautiful after having two kids!!!" one fan wrote in the comments. "She's the reason I'm so comfortable in my own skin," another remarked.
Gomez's fans can thank TikTok for getting to see this side of the star. She told Extra that she hasn't always been the biggest fan of social media, but she has a blast on TikTok. "I get to be silly and I love doing that," she said. "I love making people laugh."
Penn Badgley's moves make fans melt
Some TikTok videos get the internet all fired up because they're so unexpected, such as "You" actor Penn Badgley's charming bid to make the "For You" page by getting his groove on. He might play a sadistic killer, but his co-star Jenna Ortega revealed that he's an absolute joy to be around when he isn't pretending to be creepy. "Penn is such a sweetheart," she told Hola!. "He's actually quite funny. He likes to dance and crack jokes in between takes."
Now, thanks to TikTok, millions have gotten to see this side of Badgley. He delighted fans when he joined the app and immediately outed himself as a Swiftie by portraying two versions of himself while "Anti-Hero" played. His first TikTok even earned him an enthusiastic "OMG!!!!" from Swift herself. But it was his duet with TikTok star Elyse Myers that really wowed his followers. Badgley perfectly replicated her moves while swaying his hips to the Meghan Trainor hit "Made You Look." One commenter asked, "Why he got the MOVES tho??!" Another remarked, "It's funny bc he's the last person you'd expect to do this and that's what makes it slay."
In a 2021 interview with The New York Times, Badgley revealed that he had started taking dance classes. "As much as I love to move and I love to dance, it's not a language that I speak regularly at all," he confessed. But now he's blowing minds with his smooth moves.
Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner play reality show stars
DNCE member Joe Jonas and "Game of Thrones" star Sophie Turner are no Kardashians — they don't talk about their private life as husband and wife often, and Jonas explained that there's a good reason for their silence. "When we started dating, I realized that I didn't have a ton of stuff that was just for me. And in the end, it makes me a better person to have something for myself," he told Mr. Porter. He does, however, offer small glimpses inside his marriage on TikTok.
In one popular video, the worlds of "Camp Rock," Calabasas, Westeros, and lip-sync comedy collide as Jonas and Turner mouth the words of a viral "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" moment. Kylie Jenner can be heard unknowingly creating another bite-sized hit by singing about getting wasted. Turner plays the role of Jenner, trading the beauty mogul's tequila for a thermos containing an unknown fluid. Her Jo Bro, meanwhile, noshes on fro-yo, which he uses as a stand-in for Kourtney Kardashian's starchy snack. "I don't know what's going on, so I'm just appreciating my bread," she says in the audio snippet.
Something about the Queen of the North pretending to be the Queen of Kylie Cosmetics just struck a chord with fans. "Plz make more tik toks with queen Sophie," begged one of Jonas' followers. "Married life legit brings out the weird in us all ... and it's so much fun!!!" another viewer wrote.
Lil Nas X flexes his TikTok muscle in a major way
Lil Nas X is a seasoned TikTok pro who has created loads of viral videos, from faking being pregnant to spoofing "Hannah Montana" and showing off his impressive pole-dancing skills. He even has the app to thank for his music career. As noted by the Grammy Awards website, the original version of his song "Old Town Road" first found a foothold on TikTok in 2019 before he re-recorded it with Billy Ray Cyrus. So of course the rapper was responsible for creating what one fan described as the "TikTok version of the Oscar selfie" at Variety's 2021 Hitmakers Brunch. (For all you kids out there, Ellen DeGeneres got a who's who of Hollywood stars to take a selfie together at the 2014 Oscars, including Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Lupita Nyong'o, and many more.)
Lil Nas X's followers got to play spot the celeb as some of his fellow brunch attendees participated in the "Bing Bong" challenge. The eclectic mix of stars who lip-synced along with an audio clip from "Sidetalk" were Olivia Rodrigo (she got one "bing bong"), Tinashe, Chloe Bailey, Avril Lavigne, Anitta (she got the other "bing bong"), Normani, and Jack Harlow. "Most iconic video on this app," one TikTok user declared. "This is the best tik tok to ever exist," another wrote.
At the event where the video was filmed, Lil Nas X fittingly took home the innovator of the year award.