Flashy celebs and a hungry press bring us entertaining award-show gaffes nearly every year. But the show must go on!
Bianca Censori shows up naked to the 67th Grammy Awards
Well, almost naked. Celebrities on the red carpet love to show off their favorite designers, borrowed jewels and, if they’ve got ’em, stunningly hot bods. The 2025 Grammys were no different, and though she looked a bit like a hostage, Kanye West’s wife, Bianca Censori, gamely dropped her black, oversized, fur-like coat to reveal the sheerest of sheer dresses that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Even the red carpet blushed!
The duo quickly departed after getting exactly what they came for: attention. Rumors flew that they were “ushered out” of the event, but it was later revealed that they had always planned to make a splash and flee. And splash they did.
Will Smith slaps Chris Rock at the 94th Academy Awards
When Chris Rock made a joke at Jada Pinkett Smith’s expense at the 2022 Oscars, she and her husband, Will Smith, didn’t take it well. Especially him.
“Jada, I love you,” joked Rock. “G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it.” Rock was likening the actress to a Navy Seal character with a shaved head played by Demi Moore in 1994. Pinkett Smith has alopecia, a condition that causes hair loss, and has been open about shaving her head as a result.
Smith, who was nominated that year for King Richard, laughed at first; Pinkett Smith rolled her eyes. Smith then walked up onstage and slapped Rock across the face. Viewers wondered if the incident was scripted until Smith returned to his seat and yelled at Rock, “Keep my wife’s name out your (expletive) mouth!” Twice.
Later in the show, Smith won Best Actor for his role as Richard Williams, Venus and Serena Williams’s father. During a tearful acceptance speech, he apologized to the Academy and other nominees, but not to Chris Rock.
Sofia Vergara spins on a pedestal at the 2014 Emmys
People don’t watch award shows for speeches from industry executives, but we suffer through them all the same. At the 2014 Emmys, producers tried to shake up the yearly ritual by pairing National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) chairman Bruce Rosenblum with Sofia Vergara, the sexy Modern Family star, perched on a slowly rotating pedestal.
“What truly matters is that we never forget that our success is based on always giving the viewer something compelling to watch,” Rosenblum quipped.
Critics were appalled and took to social media (and regular media) to slam the sight gag and the “sex sells” mentality. Vergara didn’t understand the backlash. She told Entertainment Weekly that she did not see the gag as demeaning. “It’s absolutely the opposite. It means that somebody can be hot and also funny and make fun of herself. Somebody started this who has no sense of humor.”
La La Land “wins” Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards
Picture the scene: Hollywood legends and Bonnie and Clyde costars Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty were presenting the Best Picture category at the 2017 Oscars. When Beatty saw the name inside, he looked confused and handed it to Dunaway. She glanced down, called out La La Land, and the movie’s team rushed to the stage. But the musical ode to Los Angeles wasn’t the real winner.
As the team gave speeches, men in headsets gathered on stage and inspected the envelopes. The faces of the cast and crew started to change. Producer Justin Horowitz soon announced that Moonlight, a quiet coming-of-age story, had actually won. As shock spread through the theater, Moonlight folks hesitantly walked up, host Jimmy Kimmel blamed Steve Harvey, and Beatty implored: “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
So what happened? Beatty had been given a duplicate envelope and card for the Best Actress in a Leading Role winner, which read “Emma Stone, La La Land.”
Kanye West interrupts Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards
Kanye West is no stranger to controversy, but when he jumped on stage at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards and grabbed the mic from then-19-year-old Taylor Swift’s hands just as she’d started her acceptance speech for Best Female Video, he took it to another level.
Swift’s “You Belong with Me” had edged out the Beyoncé megahit “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It),” and West, who now goes by Ye, was not having it: “Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you and I’m a let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time,” he said before returning the mic.
He was roundly booed, and even President Obama called it a “jackass” move. As for Queen B, she invited Swift onstage as she accepted the Video of the Year award later that night. The beef between West and Swift has played on for years, as both artists made diss tracks, took to social media, apologized, gave and retracted forgiveness and so on.
Sean Spicer’s joke falls flat at the 2017 Emmy Awards
Host Stephen Colbert invited an unwelcome guest to spice up his opening monologue at the 2017 Emmy Awards: Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary during Donald Trump’s first presidential term (and later, a contestant on Dancing with the Stars).
At the time, Spicer was famous for falsely claiming that Trump’s inauguration drew bigger crowds than any other president’s. During a joke about that night’s Emmy crowd, Spicer rolled in behind a replica of his infamous podium and declared, “This is the largest audience to witness the Emmys, period. Both in person and around the world.” It went over about as well as you’d expect.
Colbert defended the move, but stars from Kumail Nanjiani to Seth Rogen expressed disgust on social media that “Spicey” was on a redemption tour. Other celebs, like James Cordon, were spotted being chummy with Spicer at afterparties, fueling more backlash over normalizing the controversial figure.
Rights groups protest Eminem at the 2001 Grammys
Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem, has long been known for his quick and controversial lyrics. In 2001, he was nominated for four Grammys for The Marshall Mathers LP, which prompted civil-rights groups to protest outside the 43rd annual Grammys at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where he was set to perform with Elton John.
Groups including the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the National Organization for Women (NOW) organized against what they called his violent, misogynist and homophobic lyrics, though others, including his co-performer John and the Grammy organization, defended the nominations and performance.
The rapper won three Grammys that night, and after performing his song “Stan,” about an obsessed fan, he and the British pop star hugged in a show of unity. In true Eminem style, he then flipped the bird at the audience.
John Travolta mispronounces Idina Menzel’s name at the 86th Academy Awards
John Travolta had one job to do at the 2014 Oscars: introduce Frozen singer and actress Idina Menzel’s performance of what would become that evening’s Best Original Song winner. Instead, he bizarrely welcomed “Adele Dazeem” to the stage. Most assumed he was inebriated, while some feared he’d had a stroke.
He blamed a frazzled entrance, an unexpected encounter with Goldie Hawn and a change on the cue cards. Menzel let it go, but not before playfully returning the favor the following year by asking “Glom Gazingo” to join her on stage and jokingly adding, “It’s not like it’s going to follow me around for the rest of my life or anything.”
Patrika Darbo gets her 2018 Daytime Emmy rescinded
Did you know there was an Amazon soap opera called The Bay? Actress Patrika Darbo won a 2018 Daytime Emmy for her guest work on the show, but it was rescinded after the Academy found errors in how her work was submitted for consideration. (She had previously appeared on the show, so did not qualify as a guest, and her highlight reel contained more than one episode’s work, which was not allowed.)
“It’s a sad thing that I’m going to lose my Emmy because of a paperwork error, but if we let little things like that go through we are negating the Emmy brand and that cannot happen,” Darbo, who was on the board of NATAS at the time, told Variety. She and others vowed to reform the system, and the submission guidelines were clarified to prevent similar incidents in the future.
Audience boos Michael Moore at the 75th Academy Awards
Wherever filmmaker Michael Moore goes, controversy often follows. (Although in all fairness, he seems to like it that way.)
In 2003, he accepted the Best Documentary Oscar for his film Bowling for Columbine—and took the opportunity to get something else off his chest: “We live in fictitious times where we have fictitious election results, that elects a fictitious president,” he said of then-President George W. Bush. “We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.”
Surprisingly, Hollywood’s generally liberal elite booed and heckled the director. At the time, the United States was gearing up to invade Iraq over false claims about weapons of mass destruction, and the general mood was one of irritation that Moore had hijacked the moment.
Steve Harvey names the wrong Miss Universe winner
As host of the 2015 Miss Universe pageant, Steve Harvey had the privilege of announcing that yet another Miss Colombia would be taking the title—so he did. Unfortunately for Colombia’s Ariadna Gutierrez, he was wrong.
When the error was discovered, Harvey returned to the stage for “four minutes of hell,” as he described it to Jimmy Fallon. The now non-winner had to dip down as the previous winner took the crown off her head and transplanted it to a stunned Miss Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach.
Harvey said the snafu was the result of a lagging teleprompter and misunderstood instructions being whispered in his earpiece. “It was the most gut-wrenching walk I’ve ever had in my life,” Harvey said. “I was brought up to face whatever there is, so I went out and dealt with it.”
Frank Capra prematurely celebrates at the 6th Academy Awards
This next scandal takes us back into the Golden Age of Hollywood. When Will Rogers announced who won Best Director at the 1934 Academy Awards, he vaguely blurted out, “Come up and get it, Frank.”
Frank Capra, nominated for Lady for a Day, made his way to the podium.
Unfortunately for both men, the award belonged to another Frank—Frank Lloyd, who had directed Cavalcade. When Capra wrote about the mishap in his autobiography, he referred to himself as a “big stupido.”
Oscar trophies vanish before the 72nd Academy Awards
Weeks before the 2000 Academy Awards ceremony, 55 Oscar trophies were stolen from a loading dock in Los Angeles. A few days later, as the company raced to manufacture replacements, a junk scavenger named Willie Fulgear found 52 of the statues while rummaging through a dumpster behind an L.A. Food 4 Less. As a bonus, Fulgear was given a $50,000 reward and two tickets to the Oscars.
Of the three pilfered Oscars that weren’t recovered, one turned up in 2003 during a Florida drug bust, and two are still missing. The recovered awards were destroyed because they figured no star would want damaged goods. Interestingly, the stolen batch was actually earmarked for the 2001 Academy Awards, as the Oscars are made a year in advance.
Dame Helen Mirren avoids the censor at the 58th Emmy Awards
Helen Mirren, known for her sassy sailor mouth, won her third Emmy for Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I. Apparently, playing staid British royals has not rubbed off on the actress. She ascended the steep steps from the audience while balancing a shawl around her shoulders, and when she got to the microphone, she laughed, “My great triumph is not falling a*s over t*t as I came up those stairs. If you saw the shoes I’ve got on, you’d understand.”
Whether it was her thick accent, her posh aura or the assumption that a woman of her age would not dare swear on live TV, the censors failed to bleep the profanity, and the hilarious and adorable moment was blasted out to homes across the United States.
Roman Polanski wins Best Director at the 75th Academy Awards
In 1978, acclaimed director Roman Polanski admitted he’d given a 13-year-old girl champagne and a Quaalude, pled guilty to statutory rape, spent 42 days in jail and then fled the country before sentencing. After decades as a fugitive living in France and other countries that agreed not to extradite him, he was awarded the 2003 Best Director Oscar for The Pianist, even receiving a standing ovation despite not being there to receive the award.
People have argued about the controversial win for years, especially as the #MeToo movement kicked into gear. Harvey Weinstein had his Academy membership revoked in 2017, reigniting the Polanski debate. In 2018, Polanski (and Bill Cosby) were expelled from the Oscars organization.
Angelina Jolie kisses her brother at the 72nd Academy Awards
Over the years, we have seen plenty of questionable kisses at big awards shows. Who can forget Britney Spears and Madonna at the 2003 VMAs, or Nicole Kidman planting one on her Big Little Lies husband Alexander Skarsgard at the 2017 Emmys as her then-real-life husband, Keith Urban, looked on?
But the cringiest kiss, surely, is the overly long one shared by Angelina Jolie and her date/brother James Haven on the red carpet at the 2000 Vanity Fair Oscar party. Making matters worse, her speech for winning Best Supporting Actor for Girl, Interrupted included this gem:
“I’m in shock. And I’m just so in love with my brother right now,” she said a little too emphatically. “He just held me and said he loved me, and I know he’s so happy for me.” Years later, another explanation emerged from a family friend. They had just been with their mother, who had received her first treatment for ovarian cancer that same day. OK … we guess?
Bret Michaels breaks his nose at the 63rd Tony Awards
This one had to hurt. Poison front man Bret Michaels was on stage at the 2009 Tonys, performing his hit “Nothin’ But a Good Time,” when he was knocked to the ground by a descending piece of scenery. He was there with the cast of Broadway’s Rock of Ages, that year’s “it” show about the world of over-the-top ’80s hair metal.
The Tonys crew said he missed his mark, and host Neil Patrick Harris made an on-stage joke, saying Michaels “gave head-banging a whole new meaning.” The singer, who fractured his nose and needed three stitches in his lip, clapped back, saying that he was never given a mark to hit or told about the set piece. He sued the show organizers and CBS over the incident, and the lawsuit was settled in 2012.
OutKast’s wardrobe sparks backlash at the 46th Grammy Awards
Flashy clothes are a rock-star signature. Lady Gaga’s raw-meat dress. Bjork’s egg-laying swan costume. But OutKast found themselves on the wrong side of the line between flash and insult when the duo, who had just won Album of the Year, closed the 2004 Grammy ceremony. For some reason, they performed their superhit “Hey Ya” with a Native American slant—complete with a futuristic teepee, moccasins and scantily clad dancers with feathers in their hair.
Native Americans and others were outraged, and CBS wound up apologizing on everyone’s behalf.
Rumors mar Marisa Tomei’s win at the 65th Academy Awards
If you’ve seen her hilarious turn as Mona Lisa Vito in the sleeper hit My Cousin Vinny, you know this scandal and its ridiculously long tail.
Tomei was the underdog in 1993, a relative newbie pitted against four heavy hitters in Hollywood. When her name was announced as Best Supporting Actor, she gave a genuine, joyful speech. But the day after the show, The Hollywood Reporter printed a blind item suggesting that she had not really won.
Rumors started flying about presenter Jack Palance being inebriated, unable to read the correct name. The story was passed around and reprinted, though the Academy repeatedly confirmed there was no mistake. (These were the days before Snopes, after all.) Tomei went on to have the last laugh, as she’s been nominated for an Oscar twice since her first and picked up several other prestigious awards and nominations.
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