1.
First, we have to start with the obvious one that recently had its one-year anniversary: the Will Smith Oscars slap.
As Chris Rock prepared to present the Best Documentary Feature award, he made a joke about Will’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and her shaved head. (Pinkett Smith has been open about shaving her head due to alopecia). Will laughed, then got up on stage and slapped Rock, before returning to his seat and shouting “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth!”
Due to the incident, which shocked celebs and viewers alike, Smith (who would go on to win Best Actor for King Richard that same night) was banned from attending Academy events for a decade. He also resigned from the Academy.
2.
Another Oscars mishap happened all the way back in 1974. As David Niven began to introduce Elizabeth Taylor (who was to announce Best Picture) a man named Robert Opel streaked behind him — completely nude.
Niven made a joke about Opel’s “shortcomings” that actually made many suspect that the stunt (and ensuing joke) had been planned — though Niven has denied this. Adding fuel to that theory, Opel was not arrested but instead gave an interview for the press.
3.
One more Oscars incident in celebration of Oscars season: when La La Land was mistakenly announced as the Best Picture winner. The year was 2017, and the ceremony was just about over when Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty took the stage to announce the last and most prestigious award of the night. But due to an envelope mix-up, Dunaway mistakenly announced the winner as La La Land.
As Beatty quickly came back to explain, the card in the envelope had read Best Actress: Emma Stone, La La Land – it was the card for an award Stone had already won earlier in the night. In Beatty’s moment of confusion, he tried to show the card to co-presenter Dunaway. Dunaway, only seeing the text La La Land, announced them as the winner. Backstage (and quickly, onstage as well) chaos erupted as the mistake was realized. Moonlight’s producers and cast replaced La La Land’s, and they made their acceptance speech.
4.
In 2015, Steve Harvey also announced the wrong winner in the Miss Universe pageant.
5.
Like the Oscars, we had the Superbowl not too long ago, and back in 2004, the football match gave us one of the most infamous live snafus of all time: the Janet Jackson nipple flash.
The incident was called an “unrehearsed, unplanned, completely unintentional” wardrobe malfunction, with a representative for Jackson saying that Timberlake was supposed to rip off that part of the top, but that there was supposed to be a bra underneath that instead “collapsed.”
6.
2004 was a big year for live snafus, apparently — not only is it the year of Nipplegate, but it’s also the year Ashlee Simpson was famously caught lip-syncing on Saturday Night Live.
When the wrong track began to play (the same one she’d already performed), Simpson did not sing, and instead did a strange dance. She later blamed the band before saying she’d lost her voice due to acid reflux and was ordered by doctors not to sing. The singer’s career was definitely affected, though it continued.
7.
In another controversial SNL performance, on Halloween night 1981, punk band FEAR performed — and to the shock of producers and viewers at home, they (along with the busload of fans they’d brought in to be their audience) started essentially destroying the stage.
The band caused a reported $200,000 of damage that night, and the broadcast was cut off before their last song, after one of the fans they brought screamed, “New York sucks!” into the mic.
8.
The Replacements were also banned from SNL after Paul Westerberg accidentally dropped an f-bomb and Bob Stinson did a somersault that exposed his bare butt.
9.
But perhaps the most infamous SNL performance was when Sinead O’Connor performed. Last minute, O’Connor had requested to perform Bob Marley’s “War” a capella instead of “Scarlet Ribbons” as her second number. She also asked for there to only be one camera, and for it to be a close-up of her, so she could hold up a photo of a hungry child and impart on the audience a message about protecting kids from child abuse*. Instead, during the live broadcast, O’Connor held up a photo of Pope John Paul II, said “fight the real enemy,” and tore up the photo (to protest child abuse in the Catholic church) before leaving the stage.
O’Connor’s reputation never truly recovered, and the performance was even mocked on future SNL episodes — but some thought it brave, especially in a modern lens, and Lorne Michaels seemingly has at least a little admiration for the act, though it was reported afterward that NBC banned her from the show.
10.
One last SNL one…when cast member Charles Rocket accidentally let the f-word slip in a Dallas-themed sketch in the 11th episode of Season 6. The moment became even more famous in retrospect; Rocket was fired for the slip-up, and almost the entire rest of the cast followed when the season ended early two episodes later due to a writer’s strike.
11.
One-time competitor of SNL, the live sketch show, Fridays, aired briefly during the 1980s. In one skit, starring Andy Kaufman and Michael Richards, Kaufman repeatedly broke character and messed up on his lines. This led to an all-out brawl between Kaufman and Richards.
It later came out that the incident had been staged by Kaufman, but audiences certainly did not know that, and neither did the crew members who ran onstage and tried to break up the brawl. The stunt worked, with Fridays co-creator John Moffitt saying it was responsible for getting the show renewed for another season.
12.
Of course, we’d be remiss not to mention in this post the moment that started the Taylor Swift Kanye West feud: when Kanye interrupted Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Video by a Female Artist at the VMAs to say that Beyoncé should’ve won instead.
Celebrities, including Beyoncé, reacted with shock, and much of the audience booed. Later in the night, Beyoncé invited Taylor onstage to “have her moment” after Bey won Video of the Year.
13.
Another iconic VMAs moment was Britney Spears and Madonna kissing onstage. While it may seem tame by modern standards, back in 2003 the two heterosexual pop music icons locking lips unexpectedly on live TV dominated the news circuit for a long time and cemented itself as an iconic pop culture moment.
14.
Speaking of awards shows…while performing in conjunction with Rock of Ages at the 2009 Tony Awards, some viewers were shocked to notice Bret Michaels get hit by a piece of falling scenery.
It at first appeared Michaels was fine, with host Neil Patrick Harris joking that Michaels brought “a whole new meaning to headbanging.” However, the story became more dramatic with time — ten months later, Micheals nearly died from a brain hemorrhage he said was related to the incident.
15.
Finally, let’s end with one where the celebrity wasn’t so lucky. Tommy Cooper was a Welsh comedian and magician who died on live TV while performing on the British variety show Live from Her Majesty’s. Cooper suffered a heart attack moments after he began a segment, but the audience, believing it was simply a part of the sketch, just laughed as he died.
The show’s host, Jimmy Tarbuck, realized what was happening and had the show cut to commercial. The show continued (none of the performers knew that Cooper was dead, only that he was not feeling well, and Tarbuck was told he was alright so that he’d be able to finish hosting the show) while attempts were made to save Cooper. Cooper was brought to the hospital and pronounced dead.
If you’ve ever spotted something wild, awkward, or unplanned on live TV, we want to hear about it — let us know in the comments below.
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