Celebrities Who Partied Way Too Hard At The Super Bowl
When the final whistle echoes through the crowded confines of Arizona's Allegient Stadium on Sunday, February 12, 2023, expect two final Super Bowl LVII outcomes. First, it'll either be the Kansas City Chiefs or the Philadelphia Eagles who'll walk out with the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Second, expect A-listers fortunate enough to attend the game and other luminaries to exercise their hankering for all that gridiron glory and party until the last piece of post-game confetti is picked off the field. Phoenix, ground zero for Super Bowl festivities, plans to shift into big-game mode, with club parties featuring the likes of Shaquille O'Neal, Drake, celebrity chef Bobby Flay, Machine Gun Kelly, and Snoop Dog bringing their A-game to ensure fans get the most out of the football revelry.
It's a tall order for a city that doesn't have its own version of Hollywood in its backyard, which came in handy for Los Angeles, when it hosted Super Bowl LVI in 2022, but given the itinerary, the Arizona metropolis seems to be up for the challenge. Meanwhile, media wags and paparazzi will also make a beeline for the Super Bowl, salivating with opportunities to capture a few celebs who might get carried away with the proceedings. They're not likely to be disappointed, as history has documented several big names who've made big headlines at the NFL summit for all the wrong reasons. It's time to break out the suds and snacks to check out who previously made the party faux pas list.
Tom Brady got a little rough with the Super Bowl trophy
During his years as a pivot for the New England Patriots, Tom Brady led such a devastating offense, it was almost expected the team would perennially win the Super Bowl. Since Brady's arrival in 2001, the Pats made it to the NFL final nine times, winning six of them, a league record shared with the Pittsburgh Steelers. But when the Patriots traded Brady to the fledgling Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020, the veteran quarterback was bent on redemption as he sailed the squad to Super Bowl LV, where the Bucs whipped the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9. To Brady, the win validated that he still had game.
That probably explains his exuberance when the team returned to Tampa Bay for the aquatic victory parade on the Hillsborough River, especially when he put his championship arm to good use, chucking the Vince Lombardi Trophy to another boat. "There was not a lot going through my mind at that point," he said to Michael Strahan on "Good Morning America," in what was likely his biggest admission that he had a few pops. "That was not smart for a couple of reasons. One is, if we drop it, that's a little bit of a problem. But the worst thing that could happen is the edges on that trophy are so sharp — and had those things clipped one of my boys on the other boat, it would have been an ugly, ugly parade."
Paul Rudd got looped in a Kansas City nightclub
When actor Paul Rudd was named People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive in 2021, he wasn't sure he was the right choice. "This is not false humility," Rudd told the publication. "There are so many people that should get this before me." He might have had a point if People had taken a look at Rudd the year before, celebrating in a Kansas City nightspot the night the Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers 31-20 to win Super Bowl LIV, their first title victory in 50 years.
With truss lights bathing the club in pink and speakers blaring Queen's "We Will Rock You," a Twitter video caught a disheveled Rudd dressed in black swilling away at a beer, while his free hand checked his head to confirm it was still precariously balanced on his shoulders. Another account cited Rudd sharing a DJ booth with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce screaming out a few expletives to commemorate the Arrowhead folks winning the big one.
Although he's technically a Jersey boy, Rudd has a special attachment to the Kansas City area, having moved to the Overland Park suburb near the border of Kansas and Missouri at age 10 and attending the University of Kansas to study acting. He makes it a point to hit the Missouri metropolis to join locals to celebrate their gridiron success. Chances are folks might see him back when the Chiefs make their third appearance in the annual NFL final since 2020. It's likely his sobriety level will receive additional scrutiny if the team wins again.
Kevin Hart tried to crash the victory stage
Comedian Kevin Hart did a couple crazy things in 2018, both of which didn't exactly help his celebrity stock. The former is well-known, when Hart unceremoniously removed himself from hosting the Oscars after some homophobic jokes he posted on social media years prior had resurfaced. The other took place at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, where the Philadelphia Eagles crushed the New England Patriots 41-33 at Super Bowl LII. While the former incident blurred the borders between free speech and sexuality sensitivity, the latter, especially by Hart's admission, was plain dumb. The short story has it that Hart was inebriated, and he tried to hit the victory stage where the Eagles were celebrating their win. A security guard, however, successfully got in his way.
"To all the kids out there, I just want to say, don't drink. When alcohol is in your system, you do dumb stuff," said Hart the next day on Instagram. "Me trying to go on stage with the trophy, definitely in the top two stupidest things I've ever done, but who cares? The Eagles won the Super Bowl. Yeah, I'm still a little tipsy, but the world can kiss my a**."
On "NFL Rush" in 2022, Hart, a native of Philadelphia, briefly recalled the incident and issued a prophecy: "Don't worry, I'll get my chance again. I'll get on that podium one way or another, I promise you that."
Chrissy Teigen titillated her followers while drunk
There's no argument that model Chrissy Teigen is a masterful agent provocateur online, with the ability to peck out a social media post as deftly as she can sashay down a runway. And at Super Bowl LI in 2017 at Houston's NRG Stadium, she briefly managed to eclipse the drama of Lady Gaga's aerial halftime show and the New England Patriots' miraculous comeback to edge the Atlanta Falcons 34-28. For openers, Teigen admitted she was sloshed even before the first pigskin got the boot. "Hi Houston, New Yorker here, it's actually pronounced house-ton I'm drunk," posted Teigen in a since-deleted tweet in reference to the Big Apple's Houston Street (via ET).
But it was during the game that Teigen, sitting with husband John Legend, created a video sensation reminiscent of the Janet Jackson "Nipplegate" incident 13 years earlier. A FOX network camera quickly focused on Teigen sporting a purple jacket with a fishnet top and an obvious tip-off that she wasn't wearing a bra underneath. Realizing that the image ventured into TMI territory, the camera quickly panned away, but not before a few alert folks watching the game on TV managed to capture the visual and post it on Twitter.
To her credit, Teigen didn't shy away from the exposure, so to speak, after the tweet went viral, but went with the flow instead. The next day, she tweeted out (via Refinery 29), "Boom goes the dynamite," and the incident wafted away without repercussions.
Two Patriots helped a 'little old lady' while hammered
It doesn't matter how good an NFL team looks on paper; other intangibles like chemistry make all the difference between the performance levels of an average squad and a championship club. Few players exemplified that element more than wide receivers Julian Edelmann and Danny Amendola, who greatly contributed to the myriad of Super Bowl trophies won by the New England Patriots. The duo frequently hung out publicly, including one appearance at the Met Gala, and portrayed themselves in support of Tom Brady, their favorite pivot, in the movie "80 For Brady," per Variety. They also loved to drink together.
Back in Boston after the Pats beat the Seattle Seahawks at Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, Edelmann and Amendola were getting tanked at a celebratory Harvard house party. Realizing they had to honor an appearance at a nightspot called the Phoenix Club, they got someone to drive them downtown, where they came across someone in need. "Remember a car in the snowstorm? A car gets stuck. Me and Danny get out of the car to push the car off the freeway," recalled Edelmann on the podcast "Games with Names" in October 2022. "This little old lady in the middle of the freeway ... on your way downtown," added Amendola. "[Rescued by] two drunken, Super Bowl-winning Patriots," chimed in Edelmann.
Regardless of their condition, it's refreshing to know that two people whose job descriptions emphasize receiving decided to give someone a crucial hand that night.
Randy Travis blamed his public intoxication arrest on the Super Bowl
During his prime, country singer Randy Travis was a button-down stalwart of traditional country during the '80s and '90s, when the genre shifted into crossover territory with pop. Fans assumed he had more of a straight-arrow personality and were shocked when they heard that Texas sheriffs arrested Travis for public intoxication in 2012. A police report revealed that officers found the country star with an open bottle of wine while sitting in a vehicle parked in front of Denton's First Baptist Church. "I apologize for what resulted following an evening of celebrating the Super Bowl," read a statement by Travis issued to AP News (via CBS News) after he was released. "I'm committed to being responsible and accountable, and apologize for my actions."
That commitment didn't last long when a few months later, Travis was arrested again for driving while intoxicated, after officers found him lying on the ground naked nearby a Pontiac Trans-Am that collided with some road barricades. Smelling of alcohol, Travis allegedly refused to take a breathalyzer test and was otherwise hostile to law enforcement on the scene. After being held for two days, Travis was release after bail was posted at $21,500.
The following year, problems escalated when Travis suffered a stroke, which hampered his mobility and debilitated his singing voice. He has since partially regained his ability to sing, which he demonstrated with a rendition of "Amazing Grace" when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.
Christina Aguilera messed up the national anthem
Blessed with a vocal ability that can reach four octaves, pop chanteuse Christina Aguilera seemed like the perfect choice to sing the national anthem at Super Bowl XLV in front of thousands of football fans in AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas in 2011. But throughout much of "The Star-Spangled Banner," Aguilera let her powerful pipes veer out of control, messing up pitches in some instances, overcompensating in others, and even flubbing a line. Critics pilloried the five-time Grammy winner for her performance, with the Bleacher Report mercilessly attacking Aguilera in a scathing editorial. "You looked drunk, your performance reeked and you failed to get through a song that is ingrained in children from the youngest of ages," read the op-ed. Yikes.
After her appearance ignited further criticism in the Twittersphere, Aguilera hoped for clemency from an angry mob of patriots. "I can only hope that everyone could feel my love for this country and that the true spirit of its anthem still came through," she said in a statement, per The Guardian. Aguilera didn't address any allegations that she was intoxicated when she sang the anthem before kick-off, although it was likely that interested folks connected the apparent dots less than a month later when Los Angeles cops arrested her for public intoxication. Police took Aguilera into custody overnight until she sobered up, noting that this was simply an issue of public safety. They also booked Matthew Rutler, Aguilera's future fiancé, for allegedly driving under the influence (the charge was later dropped).
Donovan McNabb allegedly partied before the big game
In 2005, the New England Patriots barely squeaked by the Philadelphia Eagles 24-21 at Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville. But one Eagles player claimed that the team could have come out on top had quarterback Donovan McNabb opted against a club crawl the night before. Wide receiver Terrell Owens recalled other Philadelphia players telling him that McNabb vomited in the huddle at one point during the game. "I've talked to teammates since then and know for a fact that he was out the night before, he was out the night before, before the biggest game pretty much all of our careers," Owens claimed on the Bleacher Report's "Untold Stories" in 2020. "There's people that saw him out the night before, said he was drinking, and I think that attributed to him throwing up in the huddle."
McNabb didn't comment on his alleged pre-game excursion (though he did previously deny the vomiting claim), and during the game, the pivot didn't seem to show any evidence of a hangover, completing 30 of 51 throws for 357 yards. Although three of his passes resulted in touchdowns, another three were intercepted. Additionally, McNabb threw nine passes for 122 yards to Owens, the team's most productive receiver that night.
But something deeper may have been at play, since the two players frequently butted heads during their two seasons together with the Eagles. In the case of McNabb and Owens, it appears that most of those instigations involved a clashing of egos, launching a feud that is clearly still ongoing.
Jimmy Kimmel got the audience sloshed on his first show
In 2003, broadcaster ABC wanted to introduce a new TV offering immediately after the Tampa Buccaneers defeated the Oakland Raiders 48-21 in Super Bowl XXXVII. So they chose the post-game primetime slot to debut talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" — hoping to draw audiences to the program's slated after-hours spot. That night, host Jimmy Kimmel trotted out the star power with guests George Clooney, rapper Snoop Dogg, and musical guests Coldplay. They also broke out a bottle of the good stuff to celebrate the show's launch and the game preceding the program. Since the show was airing live in a bar, someone had the bright idea to serve booze to the audience, which didn't particularly end well.
In January 2023, Kimmel brought back Clooney and Snoop for a 20-year reunion of the debut to recall the events that night. "We got the audience drunk, do you remember? ... Remember somebody threw up?" asked Clooney. "She got sick," replied Snoop. That's when Kimmel popped a witticism that no doubt would have had his critics nodding in agreement. "We assumed she was vomiting because she was drunk," he said. "It may have just been the show."
In retrospect, Kimmel told Variety that serving alcohol to the audience was a bad idea, but he claimed at least one celebrity enjoyed the proceedings. Said Kimmel, "I do remember David Letterman being very tickled by that idea that we had an open bar at the show."
Joe Namath took a babe and a bottle to bed
In 1969, quarterback Joe Namath was tired of hearing from everyone that his New York Jets were expected to be thrashed by the Baltimore Colts, the favored team going into Super Bowl III, held that year in Miami. Before the NFL was one united family, the Jets were champions of the American Football League, a consortium pundits declared was vastly inferior to the National Football League, whose Green Bay Packers handily won the first two summits. Additionally, the Colts had Johnny Unitas, one of football's greatest quarterbacks, in their lineup. Three days before the match, and frustrated with the public negativity, Namath decided to motivate his Jets by defiantly telling the media, "We're gonna win the game. I guarantee it" (via The Saturday Evening Post).
But the night before Super Bowl III, arguably the biggest showdown he'd experience in his career, Namath did something that very few athletes would ever consider doing before a critical competition. To avoid the pandemonium, Namath left Miami and booked a hotel suite in Fort Lauderdale. "I went out and got a bottle and grabbed this girl and brought her back to the hotel ... and we had a good time the whole night," Namath later said to legendary journalist Jimmy Breslin, per the Daily Beast. "It's good for you," he claimed with a laugh. "It loosens you up good for the game."
The unorthodox regimen must have worked wonders for the young quarterback, as the Jets upset the Colts 16-7.