It’s comforting to know that no matter how mortifying our own cringeworthy embarrasments—those memories that still make our ears burn, they’re nothing compared to the catastrophes of A-listers far grander in their self-regard.
They mess up in front of hundreds, thousands. And, true to the laws of spectacle, their disasters don’t just land; they mushroom into something so colossal we have yet to invent the unit of measurement.
Their collapses are louder, their cringe eternal–so much so that decades later, our ears burn–not from our own blunders but from the memory of theirs.
Yes, we’re being wicked.
But let us dive in anyway.
#1 Ariana Grande, A Vegan, Got A Tattoo In Japanese That Translates To A “Charcoal Grill”
As people do, Sam and Cat alum Ariana Grande got herself a new tattoo and showed it off on the internet.
Only, she had to be a bit extra and have it–“7 rings”, a tribute to her titular song–written in Japanese.
The inkwork, perhaps in line with her apparent ambition to be different, was engraved on the palm of her right hand.
She acknowledged that the wording had “characters missing” but noted that she did not expect it to last, as the skin on the inside of the hand grows faster than most other parts of the body.
The fans weighed in, and she was put to school. She learned that the characters’ meaning was nowhere near the “7 rings” she was hoping for, but in fact shichirin, which is Japanese for small grill.
So embarrassing was this little detail, especially since she was a vegetarian, that she removed the photo.
“Please leave me and my tambourine grill alone. Thank you,” she requested of her fans, but they continued their attack until she had the ink altered and posted the new results, per The Guardian.
“Slightly better,” she captioned the image.” Thanks to my tutor for helping me fix it. RIP tiny charcoal grill. Miss u man. I actually really liked u.”
Image source: Republic Records, Instagram/arianagrande
#2 Christina Aguilera’s Bronzer Started Melting On Stage
Christina Aguilera, donning her usual bronze tone, took to the stage at the end of January 2012 to serenade the late Etta James.
She cast a striking image with her golden hair contrasting her black funerary attire and of course that lovely signature bronze tint.
As she stepped in front of the audience, she could be seen reaching backward to deal with something behind her knee.
Oh, something was definitely amiss and she did not even try to hide it.
“There is a song,” she said as she rubbed one knee against the other, “that I have included in my tour now for over a decade now since the first time I was able to have a world tour.”
She recalled how she would tell people: “Miss Etta James was my favorite singer in the whole wide world.”
And sing, she did.
She made it through an entire song while the bronzer lost its war against the heat, mingled with her perspiration, then adhered to gravity leaving streaks as it ran down her legs.
Image source: Getty/Toby Canham
#3 Jim Carrey’s Two-Minute-Long Video Declaring His Love For Emma Stone
Everyone knows Jim Carrey for his gut-bustingly funny antics; the rubber-faced chaos, the over-the-top voices, and the Ace Ventura-level absurdity.
So, if we were to picture him getting serious, would it be about the optimal placement of banana peels on set for maximum chaos, or perhaps the science of optimal face elasticity in pursuit of the broadest grin?
Or maybe it will just be about perfecting the cadence of “alrighty then.”
What it would not include (at least in some people’s imagination) is a two-minute-long video pledge of his love for Emma Stone—while being gravely serious.
But that’s exactly what he dropped in 2011.
“Emma, I just want to let you know that I think you’re all-the-way beautiful,” he began, with zero trace of irony. “Not just pretty but, you know, smart and kind-hearted.”
He then launched into a full fantasy of what their life together could be, including camping trips, Yahtzee nights, ghost stories by the fire, and chubby, freckle-faced kids who laugh all day long.
According to Carrey, there was only one snag: He was 49, and Emma Stone was 23.
“I have lines in my face, sometimes a little gray in my beard, and it takes me a lot longer to pee than it used to,” he admitted, before assuring her that these were the only discernible signs of aging he could find.
Then came the kicker—a soft, pleading sign-off: “I just wanted to let you know how I felt. I wish you love and contentment. That’s all,”…and a long pause.
Viewers were left wondering whether this was a heartfelt confession or a well-disguised gag.
One fan commented, “There must be some inside joke running here we’re not aware of…” while another lamented, “I miss the old Jim, who wasn’t all-around crazy.”
#4 Madonna Spoke About Her Mother’s Passing In A Concert
The so-called Queen of Pop, now 67, has mastered the art of making headlines—even when doing absolutely nothing.
Whether she has or has not gone under the knife (again), is a tabloid staple, but this one time she gave the media fresh meat:
During her Houston tour stop, while pouring her soul into a ballad for her late mother, she spotted a fan who did not have his eyes glued to her like the rest of the crowd. Big mistake.
She stopped mid-set to deliver a fiery judgement:
“Now I was over here singing about my mother and father and how it was like growing up alone…” she began, then turned to single out the individual who had scorned her:
“The guy with the T-shirt and chains that looks like he wants to get f**ked right now.”
Apparently, the mortal sin wasn’t his outfit but daring to look anywhere but at Madonna while she delivered her ode.
“I f**king pay attention, so you need to pay attention, young man!” she snapped, before making a comment about destroying his ego.
Of course, this isn’t her first rodeo with public scolding. She even chewed out a woman for sitting—before realizing the fan was in a wheelchair.
Madonna’s fix? A breezy: “Oh, okay. Politically incorrect. Sorry about that.” Curtain closed, crisis averted.
Image source: Getty/John Shearer/MTV VMAs 2021
#5 Rita Ora Tweeted That She’d Release New Music If She Got 100,000 Retweets
The Kosovo-born British singer and songwriter, Rita Ora, tested her popularity when she said that if she got 100,000 retweets, she would release new music.
The ultimatum—or bargain came after she had been signed by Jay Z’s Roc Nation in 2008 and was trying to make inroads into the U.S. market.
And so she posted on the last day of October: “Dropping my new song Monday if this gets 100,000 retweets.”
Later the same day, she posted “By the way my Twitter got hacked, somebody is threatening to release new music I’ve worked really hard on. Nothing comes out until I’m ready,” —after deleting her 100,000 hard-sell.
Netizens, forever critical, took to the comment thread and dragged her.
“You are lying,” wrote one. “You drastically overestimated your relevance. And it backfired,” surmised another.
A minute later on the same day, Ora wrote:
“Or the bots insist on it! When it’s ready we will drop music! Luckily I caught the hacker really quickly and deleted the post. Thank you!!”
The real issue, as one fan summed it up, was: “Where [are your] 3.9 m followers when you need them?”
Ora was feeling this sentiment too and reposted the tweet and then deleting it.
In Ora’s defense, she really had close to four million followers at the time, but Twitteraudit.com found that at least 1.3 million of these fans were spam accounts.
Meanwhile back at the ranch (on Reddit), Popculture Chat celebrated the 10 year anniversary of the disaster.
“If I were Rita, I would wake up sweating in the middle of the night, thinking about this tweet. For the rest of my life,” wrote one person, paying their respects.
Image source: Getty/Axelle/Bauer-Griffin
#6 Jennifer Lopez Returned To Her Childhood Home In The Bronx, But The Resident Did Not Know Who She Was
Just because you are famous it does not mean everybody will know who you are, even if they live in the house that was once yours.
This is what pop sensation J Lo learned when she returned to her childhood home in the Bronx.
The moment transpired in September 2014 and the footage depicts the singer kitted out to the nines. And so she strutted, chest out with her hands in her pockets as she surveyed her humble beginnings.
As she drew level with a house, she told a man standing on the porch, minding his own business: “I used to live here.”
“What’s your name?” came the answer. “My name is Jennifer.”
“Jennifer?” the man enquired.
“Yeah, and I used to live… my room was upstairs over there,” she explained.
“Jennifer who?” the man asked, still without a clue of the woman’s sense of self-regard or the 80 million records behind said self-regard.
“Jennifer Lopez,” the singer said with a quiver creeping into her voice.
To the man, the name meant nothing, so he asked, “Who’s Jennifer Lopez?”
“Me,” the A-lister said, jabbing an index finger into her shoulder.
The man stood there silently, as if aware that he was missing out on something, but he had no idea what it was.
A netizen in the comment section committed to a diagnosis, saying: “Incalculable aura loss.”
#7 Ben Affleck Made Headlines After He Sent A Message To A Woman Who Rejected Him
Ben Affleck was shopping for beaus on a dating site a year after finalizing his separation from Jennifer Garner and got snubbed by one of us average citizens.
A report by Page Six at the time (2019) confirmed he was active on Raya. Then two years later, influencer Nivine Jay took to her TikTok handle to recount how she had brushed him off after the platform matched them.
“Thinking of the time I matched with Ben Affleck on Raya,” the white text overlay read.
“[I] thought it was fake so I unmatched him and he sent me a video on Instagram.”
To prove her claim, she posted the video, in which the Argo alum could be seen saying:
“Nivine, why did you unmatch me? It’s me,” he declared, probably not used to the rejection.
Jay, who is now in a steady relationship, appeared to see the actor’s persistence in a better light than her fans and captioned the video “Sorry Ben.”
Followers in the comment thread made no concessions for Affleck and called him out for being “creepy” and “scary.”
“The fact that he acted that way [be]cause he is famous, is a red flag for me,” wrote one person.
“[He is] pretentious for thinking he is unmatchable just because he is Batfleck,” wrote another.
One netizen dished some exclusive dirt on the Batman actor when they revealed that he had been dating serially following his separation from Garner.
“He used to come into my work (restaurant in LA) taking out a new girl from Raya every night of the week.”
“He’s a joke,” the leaker concluded.
It is four years later and Affleck is in the same position: In February 2025, a month after he and Jennifer Lopez concluded their divorce, a source told People he was “dating casually.”
#8 Lili Reinhart Posted A Photo In The Buff On Instagram With A Caption About Breonna Taylor
Lili Reinhart’s attempt at activism went bust when she tried to draw attention to the demise of Breonna Taylor—with a sideb**b selfie.
In 2020, the Riverdale star posted a photo on Instagram with the caption: “Now that my sideb**b has gotten your attention, Breonna Taylor’s [attackers] have not been arrested. Demand justice.”
Instead of fueling outrage over police brutality, Reinhart’s post was slammed for being tone-deaf, spawning a short-lived trend with people posting something unrelated, then calling for Taylor’s justice—a meme that many saw as a mockery of Black Americans’ plight at the hands of police.
Realizing her mistake, Reinhart deleted the post and apologized.
“I’ve always tried to use my platform for good… I also can admit when I make a mistake and I made a mistake with my caption. It was never my intent to insult anyone,” she wrote later.
She doubled down later, clarifying: “I truly had good intentions and did not think it through that it could come off as insensitive.”
But the internet, of course, had the last word, and one commenter, apparently as tone deaf, wanted to know, “Where’s your topless photo?”
Image source: Instagram/lilireinhart
#9 Zac Efron Was Feeling Grateful At An Inappropriate Time
It was Highschool Musical alum Zac Efron’s announcement that he was grateful got him into hot water.
The problem appeared to be his timing, when he mentioned how thankful he was to have ten million followers on Instagram.
He made the statement: “I’m grateful for a couple things today: Martin Luther King Jr. & 10 million followers on IG,” on Martin Luther King day in 2016.
The blowback was so intense that he deleted the tweet and replaced it with a wordy apology around 24 hours later.
“I have nothing but the greatest admiration and respect for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr,” he wrote.
He was more fortunate than many of his Hollywood peers in that his fans accepted his apology.
“Everything is a sensitive topic in 2016,” observed one netizen, summing up the general sentiment.
If only they knew what 2025 would herald.
Image source: Instagram/zacefron
#10 Bebe Rexha Said She Would Time-Travel To Fascist Controlled France In Wwii
Bebe Rexha is a singer and writer—which is something she has been doing since her teens.
As a testimony to her dexterity at the craft, she has been writing for the likes of Eminem, Rihanna, Selena Gomez, and Nick Jonas.
Then she decided to write something on Twitter, and it was anything but good.
To be fair, she was led on: A fan asked her, “If you had the chance to time travel where would you go?”
“I would go to Paris 1940s,” came the answer.
It is likely that not many people saw the harm in the choice until another netizen unpacked it: “Can’t stop thinking about Bebe Rexha in N**i-occupied Paris.”
When Rexha realized she had put her foot in it, she responded, “Girl, I failed history. I just Googled it,” punctuating the sentence with a facepalm emoji.
The songstress would eventually visit Paris and enjoy its freedoms in 2018.
Image source: Facebook/BebeRexha, X/BebeRexha
#11 Alyssa Milano Tweeted That She Was Trans And “A Person Of Color”
Alyssa Milano, a known activist, got herself into hot water with a 2019 X post on International Women’s Day.
She was lured into the trap when a fan asked “Alyssa, are you transgender?”
Then came the faux pas:
“I’m trans. I’m a person of color. I’m an immigrant. I’m a lesbian. I’m a gay man. I’m the disabled. I’m everything. And so are you, Kirk. Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know or understand.”
“She may have had the right intentions, but Alyssa Milano’s tweet on International Women’s Day rubbed some people the wrong way,” USA Today observed.
Fox News offered its five cents on the odium and wrote: “Because Milano, 46, is a well-to-do white woman, this angered many.”
On the other side of the spectrum was the Gay Times, which quoted a queer, African-American Muslim activist, Blair Imani, saying:
“I’m confident that there are better ways to show solidarity than to claim identities that do not belong to you.”
Milano later took to social media to walk back the inflammatory post, saying:
“I’m glad this tweet invoked conversation. I’m so sorry it offended some. I see you and hear you,” and closed it off with a quote by the 13th-century poet Jalaluddin Rumi, “This is a subtle truth. Whatever you love, you are.”
Both the offending post and the apology have since been deleted.
Image source: Getty/Bruce Glikas
#12 Ben Affleck’s “Sad Face” When Asked About His Film’s Negative Reviews
In a sit down with Tom Butler in 2016, Ben Affkleck and Henry Cavill faced questions about Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s tanking ratings.
Butler opened with the topic of the public’s reaction to the DC creation.
“It’s been getting a mixed response.” the interviewer stated diplomatically. Said mixed response however comprised statements like:
“When in doubt, [the film’s producer] simply slings another ingredient into the mix, be it an irradiated monster, an explosion on government premises, or the sharp smack of masonry on skull,” by the New Yorker’s Anthony Lane.
Mirroring this sentiment, in a piece published by Vox, Alex Abad-Santos dubbed the movie a “crime against comic book fans.”
Faced with these reactions, Cavill launched into a long-winded explanation.
“The interesting thing is that we get the critics who have their personal opinions and the thing about personal opinions is that they always come from a place and there’s a preconceived idea.”
“What is going to really matter is what the audience says,” he continued. “Because they’re the ones who are buying tickets, they’re the ones who want to see more of this kind of story or not.
“And so it’s the audience’s voice [that] is loudest and after this weekend the audience will at least partly have spoken.”
When Affleck was called on for an answer, he said simply, “I agree.”
The internet dubbed the snippet “Sad Affleck,” and it became a meme, with Disturbed’s The Sound of Silence being edited into it.
Affleck would eventually talk about the video in a 2022 interview with the Los Angeles Times.
“I got to a place where [the public perception] was so different from who I am that I just stopped reading and stopped caring,” he told the outlet, but admitted that he was worried about how it would affect his children’s perspective of him.
Image source: Youtube
#13 John Travolta’s Oscars Mishap
A very memorable performance of John Travolta’s in 2014 was not on the big screen. It was at the Oscars, where he famously butchered Idina Menzel’s name into “Adele Dazeem.”
According to him, the teleprompter betrayed him, and 43 million people around the world watched Disney’s Frozen alum get instantaneously rebranded.
The From Paris With Love star tried to smooth it over later :
“I’ve been beating myself up all day. Then I thought: ‘What would Idina Menzel say? She’d say, ‘Let it go, let it go!’” as a play on Menzel’s song in the same movie.
But the revenge was sweet. The following year, Menzel introduced Travolta as her “very dear friend Glom Gazingo.”
The crowd erupted with applause, missing the inside joke entirely, although comedian Neil Patrick Harris made sure they caught the punchline when he said:
“Benedict Cumberbatch. Cumberbatch is not only the most awesome name in Show Business, it’s also the sound you get when you ask John Travolta to pronounce Ben Affleck.”
#14 Bella Hadid’s Attempt At Ghetto Lingo Became A Meme
Vogue cover girl Bella Hadid stunned fans during a sneaker publicity stunt when she resorted to street talk to describe her preferences in sneakers on a man.
Answering questions from the youth entertainment company Complex, she indicated she was not averse to dirty sneakers, but they had to be “fresh.”
“If homeboy’s coming through with these, it’s quiet for him,” she said.
“But if homeboy comes through in like…these. You got some Air Maxes out here, you got some Jordans, homeboy is gonna like…get it.”
Netizens weighing in were critical about her lingo, with one finding it traumatizing.
“I could never hear ‘homeboy’ again and not think of Bella,” they wrote.
“My therapist: Bella from the hood is not real she can’t hurt you; Bella from the hood: homeboys gonna like get it,” agonized another.
Reaching out from the depths of a COVID lockdown around three years later, a netizen predicted:
“This is how everyone’s going to socialize […] after the quarantine.”
Image source: x/itswpceo
#15 Amy Schumer Did A Bit About Kirsten Dunst Being A “Seat Filler,” Just After Chris Rock Got Slapped
Amy Schumer stormed into territory that many learned–on that same night–people should perhaps not even tiptoe through.
Yes, that was the night of “the slap that was heard around the world —because of people making jokes about other people’s wives.
Speaking about place fillers and how they hold the seats of famous people while they go to the loo, Schumer stepped up to Dunst (who was nominated for a Golden Globe) and pulled her out of her seat.
Schumer sat down next to the Fargo actresses’ husband, Jesse Plemmons, who appeared unimpressed and said, “You know, that was my wife, Amy.”
“You’re married to that seat filler?” Schumer asked, supposedly as a joke.
But joking about people’s wives went out of fashion, in fact, that very night—when Chris Rock went for the low hanging fruit of Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia areata.
We all know what happened next.
And then came the public’s verdict: “Amy Schumer is about as talented as a rock!”
“Amy Schumer is a disgusting human being. That said, a joke is a joke, take it in the spirit it was meant to be,” echoed another.
One person, apparently not phased by the anti-Amy tide, wrote:
“Alternately Kirstin Dunst could be pretty safe in the knowledge she is incredibly famous and talented and be secure enough to just have a little laugh and let the moment go instead of making a giant scene over nothing.”
#16 ‘La La Land’ Was Incorrectly Announced As The Best Picture Winner At The Oscars Instead Of ‘Moonlight’
What went down at the 89th Academy Awards was and will probably remain (arguably) the biggest boo-boo in the event’s history.
On February 27, 2017, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were handed an envelope that pronounced the Musical Romance La La Land as the winner for best picture.
It was either out of the intuition that comes with experience, or inside information, that made Beatty hesitate leading up to the face-melting faux pas.
“The Academy Award,” he said, and then stopped–one could see from the look on his face that the mental cogs were whirring–“for best picture,” he continued, as he fumbled with the red envelope.
Beatty then appeared to look over to Dunaway, who shared none of his inner conflict: She could be heard muttering, “You’re impossible.”
Not finding the support he was looking for and knowing what was written in the envelope was wrong, he passed the document to the impatient Dunaway, as if to say, “Okay, fine, you say it then.”
And say it, she did. “La La Land,” she announced proudly into the microphone.
Emma Stone could be seen celebrating in the audience giving and receiving a string of hugs while everyone around them stood, clapped, and cheered.
Smartly tuxedoed men towered over the camera as they headed to the stage to collect their reward with brisk and elated strides.
Trophies changed hands when they reached the podium, and hugs were exchanged there too.
The group was three speeches deep when a man with a headset walked in among them, and a hubbub broke out behind one of the speakers.
Out of range of the microphone Stone could not be heard speaking, but her tilted head and questioning look was an early warning.
Beaty, now with the right envelope in his hand, started moving toward the microphone to vindicate his earlier hesitance.
But the La La Land producer, apparently not one for diplomacy, snatched Beaty’s hand and called out “Guys, there is a mistake.”
“Moonlight, you won best picture.”
There were only a few half hearted cheers from the audience and so the producer held up the contents of the second envelope and said “this is not a joke,” I’m afraid they read the wrong thing.
Beatty in his soft–spoken manner, later confirmed that he had doubted what he read in the first envelope, explaining that he did not drag out the procedure “to be funny.”
While fans cringed at the massive blunder, they also found inspiration.
“As confusing and heartbreaking it was, it was beautiful to see everyone’s honesty and the willingness of the La La Land producers to hand the Oscars over,” one wrote in response to the snippet on YouTube.
#17 Steve Harvey Announced Colombia As The Winner Of The Miss Universe Pageant Instead Of The Philippines
For three glorious minutes in 2015, Miss Colombia was the most beautiful woman in the universe.
Unfortunately, the universe had other plans: Namely, Steve Harvey’s eyeballs short-circuiting on live TV.
Ariadna Gutiérrez was already basking in her cosmic title, curtsying like royalty, when Harvey uttered the words: “I have to apologize”—translation: Brace yourselves, I’m about to detonate the pageant equivalent of Chernobyl.
He delivered the correction with the careful pacing of someone reading ransom demands:
“The first runner-up is… Colombia. Miss Universe 2015 is… Philippines.”
Said Miss Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach, who already seemed more nervous than her rivals before the announcement, had to then process being the most beautiful woman alive, and taking a crown off another woman’s head in front of a billion viewers to achieve this.
As for Miss Colombia, she had to perform the world’s most humiliating return policy and the life evaporated from her smile faster than Harvey’s credibility.
Steven He’s “emotional damage” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Harvey scrambled for damage control, holding the cue card up like Exhibit A in a trial where the defendant was his own literacy.
“I will take responsibility for this. It was my mistake, it was on the card,” he said bravely.
And this is how the Miss Universe 2015 event came to be remembered.
Not for its gowns or glitz, but for Steve Harvey executing one of the most catastrophic oopsies in live television history.
From the crowd, judge Niecy Nash adjusted her hair and delivered her look-at-me commentary. “Oh my God. It’s pandemonium out here,” she said into her camera.
Social media for most parts appeared to forgive their beloved host, excusing him for being human.
While others… not so much: “This is why Steve never quits his day job(s),” wrote one fan in response to CNN’s coverage of the faux pas.
#18 Kelly Osbourne’s Attempt At Political Discourse Blew Up In Her Face
TV presenter and fashion critic, Kelly Osbourne, is one of many celebs to venture into the sphere of politics and step on a reputation mine.
She appeared on ABC’s The View in 2015 with co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie Perez, Michelle Collins and Raven-Symoné, where Donald Trump’s progress in the polls took front and center.
There she tried her hand at political commentary and blurted out: “If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump?”
The words were barely out of her mouth when her three co-hosts could be heard venting their disapproval.
“There are a lot of Latinos here in this country that do agree that the immigration problem is a problem and it does need to be addressed and it does need [to be] fixed,” Perez, who is of Latino heritage, shot back.
“But, making those comments, those racist comments, do not help,” she continued.
Osbourne, realizing her error, went straight to damage control: “Latinos are not the only people to do that,” and then “Come on, you know I would never mean it like that,” CNN reported.
But irrespective of what she meant, the oopsie was recorded on camera and thus immortalized, and so she took to social media with a woeful apology.
“I want to start by saying I ALWAYS take responsibility for my actions. In this particular case I will take responsibility for my poor choice of words but I will not apologize for being a racist as I am NOT. I whole-hearted f***ed up today,” she wrote.
Fortunately for her, Rosie Perez took to her handle with an apology of her own and wrote: “My apologies @KellyOsbourne, I took your point wrong-#Trump #Latinos. My bad. Your heart is so pure & righteous. I adore you.”
In 2024, Rolling Stone Magazine interviewed The Osbournes alum and used the opportunity to rehash the faux pas.
If what the then-39-year-old had to say was anything to go on, it still turns her ears red.
“It hurt a lot of people, and that to me, is by far […] the worst thing I’ve ever done,” she told the outlet.
#19 Pink Announced, “I’m Gay,” And Then Said “Actually, I’m Not,” Immediately After
Pink accepted the Human Rights Campaign’s Ally for Equality Award in 2010. In a bid to be more… Fabulous maybe? she greeted fans with:
“Hi, I’m Alecia. I’m a Virgo, I’m 31, I’m gay.”
“Actually I’m not,” she said after a pause, then brushed the joke aside with “but that’s not important.”
“My point is, in the world, I would like the same boring response that I would get from ‘Hi I’m a virgo’ – I would like ‘Hi I’m gay’ to elicit the same response,” she defended herself.
Notably most fans at the time saw the statement in the same way she defended it.
“Pink said this because she wanted to emphasize that someone’s s***al orientation shouldn’t matter,” wrote one commenter on TikTok.
“And that people should respond to such statements with the same level of acceptance as they would to personal details,” echoed another.
But not everyone saw it this way and more recently, one netizen likened her to Jojo Siwa, who came out as Lesbian 2021, then in 2025 she decided she was no longer lesbian but rather a queer—after she got into a relationship with Celebrity Big Brother co-star Chris Hughs.
#20 Kesha Tried To Hug Jerry Seinfeld, But He Blew Her Off
Not everyone will hug you—even if you are hot. Kesha learned this the hard way.
At a 2017 David Lynch red carpet event, Seinfeld was mid-interview with reporters when the Tik Tok singer ran up behind him, beaming.
“I love you so much,” she blurted, cutting into his monologue. “Can I give you a hug?”
“No thanks,” came his cool reply.
“Please?” she pressed, arms already raised. Still, the answer didn’t change.
“Okay, a little one,” she bargained. But Seinfeld wouldn’t budge.
“Oooh…” Kesha sighed, retreating with her eyes downcast as the camera crew laughed at the exchange.
“That was a nice move,” one cameraman quipped.
“I didn’t know who that was,” Seinfeld admitted.
“That was Kesha,” a journalist informed him.
The pop star never forgot the moment. Six years later, she described it as the “most depressing” experience of her life.
“I got really excited because he brings me peace and love and all things good in the universe, and then he didn’t hug me in front of cameras,” she told radio host Tom Sharpling.
“It was the most depressing and hilarious, but also so sad. It was, like, the saddest moment of my life.”
Still, there’s no bad blood. Seinfeld later said he was sure he “would’ve liked her”—he just needed to know her a little better before handing out hugs.
#21 Britney Spears Thought Ryan Seacrest Was Gay
Footage from a 2016 Ryan Seacrest-Will I Am interview with the Toxic artist is the closest many have come to seeing actual footage of the proverbial light bulb switching on.
The radio host and Black-Eyed Peas singer were chatting about women and perfume.
“I mean, guys don’t feel that way, and if you did…”
“I do,” Seacrest interjected.
“You do? You spray cologne on your girl?” the singer asked.
As this exchange continued, Britney Spears’ head swivelled left and right as if she were at a riveting tennis match.
She looked first at Will I Am as he chatted, appearing fully invested in what he had to say, and then at Seacrest.
When Seacrest said, “I spray cologne on my pillow to make me think that they are there,” she gawped, and looked at Will I Am as if seeking confirmation, before turning back to Seacrest.
The radio host kept talking, but Spears paused her tennis-like spectatorship and stared straight ahead, as though digesting this new revelation.
Social media was there for the moment and one person wrote:
“Watching the gears turn in her head second by second is f***ing amazing,” wrote one person.
“Her mouthing ‘girl’ is iconic though, idk why this video made me laugh so hard,” echoed another.
But some saw it as a manipulation by Seacrest.
“Ryan Seacrest tricked us all into thinking he’s gay so he could be a creep under the radar,” they wrote.
#22 Ceelo Green’s Disastrous Attempt At A Rebrand
CeeLo Green put effort into his attempted rebirth in 2016 and went as far as staging himself laying face down on his studio floor after his phone (supposedly) exploded.
Maybe that’s where things started going wrong, because the act was lost on fans—some of whom genuinely thought the Grammy winner had expired.
He later addressed the confusion, saying: “Truthfully, I’m really upset that anybody had to be emotionally disturbed by what they saw today.”
“Actually, what you saw today was a clip from a smaller video that we were shooting for a new project that I’m doing called Gnarly Davidson.
“It’s supposed to set up and introduce the new character identity.
And so the so-named Gnarly Davidson entered the picture with a song to herald his appearance on the scene.
In 2017, Green showed up in character at the Grammy Awards.
He would later say that he was not at the Grammys, suggesting that it was, in fact, a separate person.
The performance was not winning him any awards, though, and as HipHopdx noted:
“With his latest stunt, the Gnarly Davidson video for “Jay-Z’s Girl,” he again uses the mini-version of CeeLo (used in the “F*** Me, I’m Famous” visual) to fawn over Beyoncé and daydream about being her man.
“Considering the illustrious pop singer is both pregnant with twins and married to one of the biggest rappers in the industry, Jay Z, it comes across as rather foul.”
“Coupled with his Valentine’s Day (February 14) interview claiming he wasn’t at the Grammys, it’s unclear if this is all for attention (let’s face it — it’s working) or if he’s truly lost his marbles.”
Image source: Gnarly Davidson
#23 Lenny Kravitz’s Pants Ripped Showing His Private Parts
In August 2015, Lenny Kravitz was serenading his Swedish audience in their capital city with the sounds of his internationally popular American Woman.
He was dressed in his signature skin-tight leather pants, a denim jacket and dark shades, and all was going swimmingly.
And then he decided that it would be a great idea to go into deep squat mode.
The Daily Mail which caught the moment showed the rocker (allegedly unfazed) sitting in a squatting position.
For this particular show and maybe one before it, he had chosen to go commando and the image of the singer on stage in Stockholm depicts him showing off the crown jewels.
The Daily Mail was not the only entity to speculate about him being indifferent to his seemingly accidental exhibition.
Fans on an online forum, Digital Spy, were surprised that there was not a bigger furore around the incident.
“Very surprised to see no thread about this here?” one netizen wrote.
“It happened some days ago in Sweden. Pants split; Lenny wears no underwear.
“Sure, he planned it.”
Image source: Getty/ullstein bild
#24 Mark Ruffalo Said God Was A Black Woman.”
The Hulk actor, Mark Ruffalo, took to his X account in December 2017 with his version of reality and wrote:
“I’m definitely ready for that. I said a prayer the other day and when God answered me back she was a Black Woman.”
The initial responses were positive, with a GIF of an A-lister-filled audience giving a standing ovation.
Another showed black women clapping as they swayed together in a single rhythm with the caption:
“The melanin kissed women are going to be all over Mark like [he is] a shea butter sale”—and that is where the positivity ended.
Backlash took over the thread with: “How did straight white men end up in charge, then?” followed by:
“Leave it to stupid humans to define their god in their own image because their minds are far too tiny to imagine a being without substance or IDENTITY POLITICS.”
“Seek help,” wrote another netizen.
Four years later, Ruffalo offered insights into his religious views when the Golden Globe website reported him saying that he grew up in a household with three faiths: Christianity, Catholicism, and Bahai’ism.
He did not elaborate on his 2017 epiphany.
Image source: Instagram/markruffalo, X/MarkRuffalo
#25 Drake Declared His Love For Rihanna At The MTV Awards
It was 2016 at the VMAs and Drake was in front of the microphone—trophy in hand.
This trophy was intended for a visibly uncomfortable Rihanna, who for the lack of anything better to do, kept looking at the memento, then at the crowd, then at the trophy again while the rapper gripped it tightly and said his long-winded say.
“The first time I met Robyn Fenty was 2005,” his spiel began, as he addressed her by her real name.
“She was shooting a music video at a restaurant called Avocado in Toronto. The song was Pon de Replay and the director of the video was Little X.
“I was introduced to her as a kid who played background music at the restaurant as people ate their dinner. It’s hard to believe that 11 years later all three of us would come together for a visual for a song called Work. Today, the world knows Little X as Director X.
“They know me as Drake and not the kid singing while you order pasta. But 11 years later, we still all know Rihanna as the one and only Rihanna.”
And then the penny dropped:
“She’s someone I’ve been in love with since I was 22 years old,” the God’s Plan singer said to whistles and cheers from the crowd.
Rihanna, who had dated Drake intermittently until 2016, would later open up about what happened on stage that night, describing the speech as the “most uncomfortable part.”
“I don’t like too many compliments; I don’t like to be put on blast,” she told Vogue Magazine two years later.
Then, of this love that Drake professed for her, she said: “We don’t have a friendship now, but we’re not enemies either. It is what it is.”
#26 Giuliana Rancic Tried To Kiss Kendall Jenner On The Cheek, But Jenner Had Already Walked Away
Kendall Jenner was involved in a second awkward moment at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards.
Giuliana Rancic, seeing the Kardashians’ alum, went in for the air kiss, which was reciprocated but only halfway (at least by French standards).
Rancic and Jenner touched cheeks on the left, and when Rancic went for the right, Jenner had already turned away, leaving the presenter hanging.
“Kendall Jenner awkwardly (and unintentionally??) denies Giuliana Rancic a double air kiss at the Billboard awards. Nothing like leaving someone’s lips hanging,” one aficionado on Facebook observed at the time.
“If it was a handshake you could do the cool dude hair swipe, but lips? What are your options? Hahaha.”
“Lean the other way and cough into your fist,” recommended another user.
#27 Drew Barrymore Faced Criticism For Getting Too Close To Her Guests On Her Talk Show
Charlie’s Angels alum Drew Barrymore came under fire for her touchy-feely approach to talk show hosting.
She can be seen getting handsy or drawing her guests into the same behavior in various episodes.
Her victims included Bad Moms actress Kathryn Hahn (made her feel her shaven leg), photographer Ash Bean (sat on her lap), Jennifer Aniston, and Adam Sandler (group hug).
One memorable moment was with presidential candidate Kamala Harris in April 2024, when the two attempted an apolitical discussion.
“[She] interviewed Vice President Kamala Harris on The Drew Barrymore Show and did the thing where she sits uncomfortably close to her guest during the interview,” The Huffington Post reported at the time.
“If you were at the ATM and someone got as close to you as Barrymore gets to her guests, you’d assume you were about to get jumped.”
The public mirrored this sentiment when one person wrote: “Drew looks like she’s going to climb onto her lap, lol.”
Barrymore became aware of these sentiments and defended herself by blaming the effects of COVID.
“Do you know how hard the [COVID-19] pandemic was for me? I was alone in a studio by myself! I like to be around people!” she claimed.
“Well, I’ll try to practice physical distance, which is not my strong point,” she told Entertainment Tonight in August the same year.
Image source: Paramount, The Drew Barrymore Show
#28 Fergie Peed Her Pants Onstage
The Black-Eyed Peas were late on stage to perform the track Let’s Get it Started in 2005.
Fergie would describe what happened next as “the most unattractive moment” of her life.
“We were late for stage, driving down the freeway, it’s Friday traffic … get to the stage, we have to start right [into] the show,” she remembered.
“I’m running on and we jump and do ‘Let’s Get It Started’, and I get crazy and I jump and I run across the stage and my adrenaline was going and gosh, I wish it didn’t happen. It was so embarrassing!”
Now, more than two decades later, in response to a snap of the singer with her wet crutch, one Instagram user wrote:
“[And she] kept performing. That’s disgusting. Sounds like humiliation to me.”
But many feel she was a hero for doing it.
Vice, who reported the story, claimed “Fergie suffered for her art. So intensely committed to getting it started in there was she that she made the ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice of peeing in your pants.”
“So the next time you’re thinking of making a joke at Fergie’s expense,” the outlet wrote in its tribute, “just remember: She did it for you.”
#29 Emmys Host Jimmy Kimmel Lay Down On Stage During Quinta Brunson’s Acceptance Speech
At the 2022 Emmys, Late Night host Jimmy Kimmel, supposedly passed out from all the skinny margaritas, was dragged onto stage by funnyman Will Arnett.
The two saved this act specifically for comedian Quinta Brunson’s acceptance speech.
According to Arnett, it was the “13th time in a row that he’s lost and he just got into the skinny margaritas back there.”
And so, with him lying on the stage, Brunson nearly tripped over him. “Jimmy, wake up. I won,” she told him, and all she received was a thumbs-up.
The Hollywood Reporter observed that she appeared to be “a good sport” as she also mentioned Kimmel to her long list of thank yous.
The outlet honed in on the actress later and picked her brain about the men’s antics and heard that they did not bother her.
“I think in that moment, I was just really happy that it was Jimmy up there,” she said.
“I kind of consider him one of the comedy godfathers; I’m a huge fan of Will Arnett, so I was wrapped up in the moment. I don’t know — tomorrow maybe I’ll be mad at him. I’m gonna be on his show on Wednesday, so I might punch him in the face. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.”
While Brunson was in a forgiving mood, a good many of the industry heavyweights were not, and names like Secretary of the Television Critics Association Andy Dehnart, author and activist Ernest Owens, HuffPost editor Philip Lewis, and Podcaster Sam Sanders lashed out at him, with the latter saying:
“Kimmel playing [deceased] on the ground right next to a black woman accepting her rightful place in the future of tv is such a stinging metaphor.”
#30 Kendall Jenner Stumbled Over Her Words While Introducing A New Band At The 2015 Billboard Music Awards
Kendall Jenner, from the Jenner-Kardashian clan that got famous for wanting to be famous, had a memorable cringe moment in 2014 at the Billboard Music Awards.
Hollywood Life was there with the enthusiastic Elizabeth Wagmeister to lament the moment.
“Kendall Jenner just had one of the most embarrassing teleprompter moments we’ve ever seen. We feel so bad for her,” Wagemeister narrated.
The moment she was talking about was when Jenner said: “Recently they made their debut on the Billboard 200 number two.”
“And now we welcome onnne…” she said and then ducked below the camera.
When she resurfaced she offered “Um… guys, I’m the worst reader… tee hee.”
Mercifully, the camera cut to a photo essay video of the band.
“She sounded like she actually said One Direction,” Wagmeister observed, before asking, “Kendall, do you have Harry Styles on the mind? Maybe.”
After the photo break, and maybe hoping that Jenner had taken a break too, they cut back to Jenner, and guess what? She messed up again.
She called the band “the summer” instead of their real name which was 5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS).
Some might argue based on album sales (somewhere north of 10 million) that 5SOS are famous, but they would likely have been more famous had Jenner displayed at least the literacy of a 12-year-old at their grand American introductory event.
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