Live TV Wardrobe Malfunctions You Can't Unsee
Sometimes, you just can't win with clothes. Social norms require us to wear them in public, so as to not show off our naughty bits to strangers who might get offended. That's all well and good, but clothes don't always cooperate. Sometimes they don't fit right, or they tear, or a zipper jams, or a button hits the road. Hey, accidents happen. It's just that clothing-related mishaps always seem to happen at the most inopportune time, like when a famous person is performing on live television.
Find out what happens when a celebrity's flashy, provocative, and flattering attire decides it can't take the pressure and splits — literally. From Mariah Carey to Nicki Minaj and LeBron James to Chrissy Teigen — no one is safe from the occasional mishap. The following actors, singers, and athletes became part of a live TV broadcast when their garments didn't do their jobs, exposing (or nearly exposing) their most private of private parts. Here are some live TV wardrobe malfunctions you can't unsee.
So much twerk to be done
Big Brother is a reality TV phenomenon around the world, particularly in the U.K. and the U.S. Viewers just love watching real people and minor celebrities do dumb stuff in the privacy of a fake home. In 2016, a British iteration of Big Brother featured Welsh reality star Lateysha Grace, best known for starring on MTV's The Valleys, which is essentially a Wales-set version of Jersey Shore. After her eviction from the Big Brother house, Grace was a guest on the aftershow called Big Brother's Bit on the Side. Host Rylan Clark-Neal recalled one of his favorite Big Brother moments involving Grace — that time she somehow convinced prim and respectable housemate Jane Connery to twerk on camera. Sensing a good TV moment, Clark-Neal asked Grace to get up and demonstrate "what a proper twerk is." Grace happily obliged.
Grace got only one or two pumps in before her tight blue dress — which sported a zipper in the back — popped and split, as if on cue. Fortunately, Grace was wearing something underneath, although not much. The studio audience, Clark-Neal, and Grace found the entire incident to be both hilarious and embarrassing, or, to coin a phrase, hilarrassing.
LeBron James quickly rebounded from this one
LeBron James, aka King James, is one of the best basketball players of all time. He's taken his teams to the NBA Finals an astounding eight years in a row. Part of being so fantastically good at sports is mental focus, both during and before games. James was probably just in the zone, thinking about how he and the Cleveland Cavaliers were going to neutralize Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors before Game 4 of the 2015 NBA Finals. Right after Usher sang the national anthem, an ABC camera focused on James as he got ready to take the court.
The baller was vigorously adjusting his shorts, and his Spandex-like garment under his shorts, when the camera — and millions watching on broadcast television — caught a glimpse of James' junk. What's worse: Cleveland wound up losing the game by 21 points.
Watch What Happens Live really is a live show
Remember that episode of Sex and the City when successful writer Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) appears on a nationally televised live talk show to promote her column, but then her beautiful and expensive designer dress she specially picked out breaks and she gets really embarrassed? Probably not, because for as much as that sounds like an episode of the classic HBO romcom, it's actually an event from the real life of Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker.
In October 2016, Parker was a guest on Andy Cohen's Bravo show Watch What Happens Live, and she came clad in a lovely, long-sleeved velvet affair courtesy of Alberta Ferretti. Ostensibly there to promote her series Divorce, part of Parker's dress divorced the rest of Parker's dress, opening up a big hole in a sleeve. Rather than freak out or run off-stage, Parker totally owned it, showing off the rip for the cameras. "I kind of dig this. It does something to this dress," she said.
The almost-emancipation of Mimi
Mariah Carey doesn't do casual Fridays. Since she blew up in the early '90s, Carey has rarely performed in public in an outfit that isn't some combination of short, extremely tight, and low-cut. (Also, shiny: Mimi loves metallic fabrics, and the more rhinestones, the better.) Come on, she's a diva, and divas dress to impress.
In May 2013, this diva dropped by Good Morning America to perform some songs live in front of a huge crowd amassed in New York's Central Park, but before she could even get down to the task at hand, one of Carey's signature barely-there gowns — a strapless Versace number — couldn't hold itself together. "The back of my dress just popped!" Carey said from the stage, holding up the dress by the front to prevent any not-suitable-for-daytime-TV body parts from making an appearance. One of Carey's many attendants rush in for some emergency alterations. Carey then dropped a little shade on the outfit's world-famous designer: "I love you, Donatella, but it popped, darling."
Good Morning America wisely threw to a commercial, and when the show returned, Carey was ready to sing ... only to experience another wardrobe malfunction. Her mic pack refused to clip to her dress, so she just held it in her hand as she sang "Always be my Baby."
The second-most famous wardrobe malfunction at a Super Bowl?
Why is Chrissy Teigen famous? We're pretty sure she started out as some kind of model, but now she seems best known for living the life of a famous person, complete with hilarious tweets, cookbooks, and a high-profile marriage to soul singer John Legend. Teigen is so rich and famous that she got primo seating at the 2017 Super Bowl. Those fancy boxes have windows, of course, and the Super Bowl camera crew is most definitely going to periodically scan the crowd for famous faces to liven up the broadcast. Said crew caught Teigen and Legend enjoying the game and their celebrity privilege. The cameras also caught an uninvited guest that Teigen probably didn't want seen by the hundreds of millions of people watching on TV.
Teigen was dressed in a mesh-like top with a blazer over it, but the ensemble shifted just so and created an infamous nip slip. Using her trademark social media wit, Teigen responded to a fan on Twitter who sent her a video clip of the moment. She actually shared the vid and quipped: "boom goes the dynamite."
There she is, quite a lot of Miss America
Chris Harrison (because he's like a less robotic Ryan Seacrest,) hosts a lot of things, including The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and, for a spell, the nationally televised throwback that is the Miss America beauty pageant. (Organizers insist on calling it a "scholarship" competition.) During a lull in the festivities of the 2015 Miss America Pageant, Harrison updated the TV audience on what was coming up next: the evening gown portion. Harrison is not a comedian, but he gave a joke the best shot he could. "Judges are looking through the beautiful gowns," Harrison said. "Not literally, that would be wrong. The judges will be looking at personal style and flair of each of these contestants."
Ironically, in that moment, Harrison's weak joke inadvertently became a little bit funny because one of the contestants on stage was indeed showing off some, uh, personal style and flair. Megan Swanson, representing the great state of Nebraska, sat on stage in a dusty pink blouse and a black skirt. As she leaned over, her skirt shifted and exposed Swanson's nether regions to TV viewers. (Alas, Swanson didn't even place in the top 20.)
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
A marathon involves literally hours and hours of running — it takes a while to complete the full 26.2 miles, plus all that rigorous training. That kind of running pushes the body to its physical limits and beyond. Not only do marathon runners burn thousands of calories and risk exhaustion and dehydration, but they've also been known to uncontrollably evacuate their bowels mid-race if their bodies just can't take what's being forced upon them. (This is to say nothing of how marathoners sometimes willingly empty their bladders while running because they can't stop and add a couple minutes to their time.) In other words, a marathon packs a wealth of potentially embarrassing situations, and in 2017, an athlete named Jozef Urban had almost gotten through the annual (and televised) Kosice Peace Marathon in Slovakia without doing anything that would shame his family for generations.
As he approached the finish line of this, the oldest marathon in Europe, Urban's shorts gave way. It seems he wasn't wearing any underwear — perhaps that extra weight would limit his aerodynamics and chafe like crazy. Consequently, as Urban triumphantly crossed the finish line to mark the end of his incredible athletic feat, his genitalia was keeping pace in full view. (Silver lining: Urban scored his personal best run time and finished in an impressive tenth place overall.)
Who wears short shorts? This WWE Diva, that's who!
It's kind of amazing that there isn't more accidental nudity in the world of professional wrestling. Here is a sport (or sport-like entertainment) which consists entirely of people dressed in what are essentially tight-fitting swim trunks body-slamming one another, flying through the air, and wildly grabbing their opponents. How is it that more angry fingers don't find their way to the waistband of their rival's shorts for a hearty tug?
On a September 2014 edition of WWE Main Event, "diva" (which is what the WWE calls its female wrestlers) Rosa Mendes was struggling to climb through the ropes into the ring when opponent Layla El reached out to pull her back down. Layla made contact with the top of Mendes' sparkly pink bottoms and pulled, exposing Mendes' bare bottom.
It's not a mirage, it's Nicki Minaj
Despite having a lot in common, or maybe because they have too much in common, Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj were engaged in a heated public feud. Both are born-and-raised New Yorkers who became powerhouses in the music industry and served as American Idol judges. They also both had memorable clothing mishaps while trying to perform live on Good Morning America.
The rapid-fire rapper appeared on the show in August 2011 for an outdoor performance. She wore exactly the kind of outfit one would expect the "Super Bass" star to wear: a bright pink jacket, a rainbow of chunky bracelets, and a mint green sports bra that apparently wasn't quite the right fit. As Minaj rapped and danced around the stage to the delight of the live crowd and the people at home about to leave for work, that sports bra couldn't keep up with the pace and allowed Minaj's breast to break free.
Minaj was too busy performing to know what had happened, but when she did notice, she quickly put the rogue body part back behind fabric. She later apologized on Nightline and denied that the wardrobe malfunction was intentional. "I'm so sorry about that," she said. "People are ridiculous if they think I would use that as a stunt."