After the slap: 10 cringy celebrity mishaps broadcast on live TV

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know “Keep my wife’s name out ya mouth!” has already become nearly as iconic as “I’m a let you finish,” but the Will Smith slap and Kanye’s mic-grabbing moment definitely weren’t the first surreal things to happen on live television.

Here are some of our favourite awkward, cringy, and jaw-dropping moments that have taken place during live broadcasts on TV.

I’m a Let You Finish

Kanye’s interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards sent the world into an uproar. The rapper suddenly jumped on stage and grabbed T-Swift’s mic to say he was going to let her finish, but Beyonce deserved the award for “one of the best music videos of all time.” Not everyone agreed with him.

Janet Jackson’s Nipplegate

First thing’s first: there’s nothing wrong with a wardrobe malfunction. But it was an unforgiving world for women in pop in 2006, and Janet Jackson’s nip-slip was such a big deal that she was dealing with the fallout for years. While performing at Super Bowl 38, Justin Timberlake ripped off her costume, exposing her chest.

Fergie’s national anthem fail

At the 2018 NBA all-star game, Fergie sang the pitchiest and sloppiest version of the national anthem anyone could have expected from her. The video went viral, and the internet was not kind. Mostly, people wanted to know why she made it so sensual.

Sinead O’Connor’s “F*ck the Pope” incident

Sinead O’Connor was a huge star in the ’80s and ’90s, so it was a real shocker when she performed on SNL and ripped a picture of the Pope to protest sexual assault against children within the Catholic Church in 1992 during her performance. She also sang Bob Marley’s “War” while she did it, which was controversial. People were not happy. After that, her musical career took an unfortunate turn for the worse.

Miley Cyrus’s weird teddy bear jam

Something very strange happened at the 2013 VMAs when Miley Cyrus performed with Robin Thicke. Why was it teddy bear-themed? Why was it so sexy? Why were there so many mascots? Why was it so dramatic? We will never really know, but this Miley Cyrus moment was so weird there was nothing to do but just watch the furry festivities unfold.

The Jonas Brothers glass-shattering moment

The Jonas Brothers were trying to look cool when they stepped through a pane of broken glass on stage in 2007 for their song, “Broken Glass,” no less. But then Joe fell on the shards, got cut up pretty badly, and then kept going. You’ve got to give it to him: the guy understood the assignment. The teen heartthrobs gave the fans what they wanted: a good show.

Katy Perry’s cake slips

After bursting out of a cake on the Latin American MTVs in 2008, the pop star just couldn’t get her footing. She was singing “I Kissed A Girl” before diving into the cake and throwing it around, then slipping on the icing not once, not twice, but three or four times. In the end, she had to crawl away on her hands and knees. Not a sweet situation.

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The Madonna-Christina-Britney kiss

At the 2003 MTV Music Awards, Madonna sensually kissed both Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera on stage. It was too hot to handle for the audience, which immediately responded in the background — probably as intended. You can bet everyone in there was talking about it for weeks.

Eminem having an angel’s a** in his face

Whether it was intentional or not is unclear, but what matters is this: Eminem was just chilling in his chair at the 2009 MTV Movies & TV Awards when Sacha Baron Cohen, dressed as an angel, ended up straddling his face. He can be heard repeating, “Are you f*cking serious?” over and over again until a bunch of people struggle to pull him off. Of course, Cohen kept riffing the whole time. Comedy gold.

John Travolta’s name pronunciation flop

At least he prefaced his mispronunciation of Idina Menzel’s name with some really nice compliments. She was about to perform “Let It Go” from Frozen when Travolta asked the crowd to welcome the “wickedly talented Adele Dazim,” or something that sounded phonetically similar. Cut to Idina Menzel, who was, in fact, pretty quick to let it go.