Bizarre Celebrity Moments We Can't Forget

It seems as though people who reach a certain level of celebrity are bound to have a bizarre moment or two that their fans can't get out of their heads. Who can forget Will Smith delivering that bone-shaking slap to Chris Rock's face and creating one of the Oscars' most controversial moments of all time? Or Michael Jackson showing off his son to photographers in Berlin by dangling him over a hotel balcony? It's weird engagement like this that draws attention of the unwanted kind to figures who already live their lives under a microscope.

Whether it's eccentric behavior captured during an interview like the Tom Cruise couch-jumping incident or more repulsive occurrences like Ariana Grande licking donuts for kicks, there's no shortage of oddball instances where celebrities behaved in uncharacteristically strange ways. The most memorable of these become the stuff of pop culture legend. Thanks to the far-reaching memory of the internet, they're always within easy reach for revisiting.

From foolish follies to fabulous flubs to downright inexplicable exploits, the world of famous figures is filled with unforgettably bizarre moments. To revel in the strangeness, here are some of the most indelible incidents that still have the world scratching its collective head and wondering just how weird celebrities can get.

There's no forgetting how impossibly excited cinema legend Tom Cruise became when he appeared on Oprah Winfrey's show to discuss his life while promoting "War of the Worlds." Back in 2005 when the usually reserved Cruise got up to his silly antics, smartphones had yet to enter the picture, which means you either saw the man in all his over-caffeinated glory on TV or popping up on the internet while you were surfing the web. That didn't stop pretty much the entire world from witnessing what became known as the Tom Cruise yellow couch incident.

Cruise showed a little too much enthusiasm while professing his love for Katie Holmes, leaping on Oprah's couch and pumping his fists. The image is indelible for anyone who saw it and changed how the usually subdued actor was viewed by his public. Some saw it as performative and hammy, a way to overemphasize his new Hollywood hook-up; others found it silly and endearing, revealing a more human side of Cruise in an unguarded moment.

Regardless of how the public received it, the incident blew up. Cruise's publicist at Paramount was fired, and the scene was hilariously spoofed in "Scary Movie 4." As for Cruise, he famously went on to marry and then divorce Holmes a few years later. Even couch-jumping love can't last forever.

If you've ever uttered "I'ma let you finish" when interrupting a conversation, you have the inimitable Kanye West to thank for pioneering the snappy phrase. Kanye was none too happy when Beyoncé lost out on a Video Music Award for her "Single Ladies" video to Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me." He ran onstage and stole the microphone, uttering the now-famous line, "I'ma let you finish ..." and set off a love-hate relationship that fed Swift's yen for writing revenge tunes.

No matter which video viewers thought deserved to win, it was hard not to feel bad for Swift, whose moment in the spotlight was stolen unceremoniously by someone who wasn't even in the running for the award. Naturally, the bizarre occurrence became fodder for future Taylor Swift songs, all of which fed into her Easter egg-laden mythology. Kanye even made mention of it and dragged the incident out much longer than it should have gone on.

Fifteen years after the mic-grab moment, the internet was still revisiting the incident. No matter how the narrative reads this far down the road, there will always be a clip of the two entering one another's orbit in a weirder-than-weird way, for better or worse.

It's a singer's dream gig to play the stage at "Saturday Night Live," but for Ashlee Simpson, the moment went colossally — and bizarrely — askew. Simpson performed her first song during her appearance in the 2004 season without a hitch, but when the second song cued up as a pre-recorded track playing the wrong song, Simpson could be seen not singing as her vocals began, then did a hoedown dance as the show went to commercial. The dream gig had become a nightmare.

The strange and unexpected gaffe that made Simpson one of SNL's most controversial musical guests was a mind-blowing moment for both the production team and the audience. According to the documentary "Ladies and Gentlemen ... 50 Years of 'SNL' Music," Simpson was having vocal issues during rehearsals, which made it difficult for her to sing live and forced the recorded performance for both songs. Simpson herself explained to "ET" a few days after the incident that her drummer pushed the wrong button, launching the vocals for her song "Pieces of Me" instead of the intended track, "Autobiography."

Though Simpson described the situation as "dehumanizing" to People in 2025, she also credits it for helping her to become resilient. "When you're faced with something so traumatic, where the world is looking at a young girl this way," she told the magazine, "you either hide or you fight and keep going. And I just kept going."

When Will Smith interrupted one of host Chris Rock's segments at the 2022 Oscars, most viewers thought it was a scripted bit at first. After all, the ceremony is notorious for planting ridiculous skits and cringeworthy sketches throughout the event to keep the audience entertained and give the guests something to do. But when Smith stalked up the steps and stood on the stage, he delivered a bone-crunching slap to Rock's face that reverberated for real. The incident left both the host and everyone watching slack-jawed, reeling from the unexpected and fully unscripted moment of violence. 

The slap was a response to a joke Rock had made about Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head — the result of her ongoing alopecia. Audiences thought it was staged, but the incident grew chilling when Smith returned to his seat and yelled his now-famous warning, "Keep my wife's name out your f****** mouth." The world quickly realized it was real, leading to a 10-year ban of Smith from the Oscars, though he won a Best Actor award for his performance in "King Richard" later that evening.

Explanations and promises to learn from the situation inevitably arose from Smith, but this egregious act has overshadowed his talent and his long-standing image as a nice guy. File this one under Actors Who Ruined Their Careers on Live TV.

It's easy to forgive the affable John Travolta for making a glaring error during his introduction of Idina Menzel, star of the hit Disney animated musical "Frozen," as she took to the stage to sing the Oscar-nominated song "Let It Go." Presenters usually read from teleprompters during these events, and depending on their eyesight, they can easily confuse the words on the screen.

But when Travolta conjured up the incredibly off-base name "Adele Dazeem" — which in no way resembles what he was trying to say — there is no holding back the laughter or the confusion. It became one of those televised occasions that gets seared into the memories of viewers forever, and one that has stuck with both Travolta and Menzel for a decade and counting.

Travolta's unusually hilarious flub was so noteworthy, it still crops up in conversations online. Menzel took it in stride and even celebrated the 10th anniversary of the public gaffe in 2024.

Few of the bizarre practices celebrities have engaged in have been as gross as the video Alicia Silverstone shared on her blog as her son was learning to eat solid food. Silverstone has long been an advocate of an animal-free diet, but she took her appreciation for earthly creatures a little too far when she chewed up her son's food and spat it into his mouth like a mother bird feeding a chick. It wasn't enough that she had adopted this practice; she felt the need to share it with her followers, which of course meant it would spread beyond that audience and make its way into the mainstream. How could it not? It isn't every day you see one of the more familiar faces in Hollywood proudly engage in such bizarre (not to mention unhygienic) behavior.

The internet had plenty of opinions about this strange practice, though Silverstone defended it and called it "adorable." "He literally crawls across the room to attack my mouth if I'm eating," she wrote in her post on The Kind Life. She also claimed that people have been feeding their children this way for thousands of years, though surely we would have heard about it from someone else before the star of "Clueless" shared it with the internet.

If you were following the increasingly strange exploits of Michael Jackson during the late 1990s, you surely saw how strangely he treated his children when they were in public. They were often covered to guard their identities and assure his privacy, an act that seems protective on the surface. But when fans and photographers surrounded his Adlon hotel room in Berlin in 2002, Jackson decided to show off his 9-month-old baby, Prince Michael Jackson II, by shrouding the infant in a baby blanket and dangling him over the railing.

Concerns arose over Jackson's fitness as a parent, and the baby was given the nickname "Blanket" for subsequent appearances with a blanket over his head. Jackson later issued a statement in which he apologized for his thoughtlessness. "I offer no excuses for what happened," he said. "I got caught up in the excitement of the moment. I would never intentionally endanger the lives of my children" (via E! News).

Though his death in 2009 shook the world and brought a renewed admiration for the star's talents (though some are convinced that Jackson is still alive), few can forget the indelible image of the King of Pop holding his child out over a balcony railing as if it were just a natural part of his day. Viewing the photos again can make anyone wonder how he retained custody.

Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake launched the term "wardrobe malfunction" into the modern vernacular during their risqué performance at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. The superstars' pair-up hit a snag when Timberlake reached for Jackson's leather bodice and ripped open the garment, revealing Jackson's left breast bearing a sunburst-shaped pasty. Jackson appeared shocked and quickly covered herself, but she was nowhere near as stunned as those who had no idea it was coming.

Canny viewers suspected the whole thing had been planned. It seemed highly unlikely that Jackson would have been wearing a decorative pasty if she hadn't been in on the move from the beginning. And the idea of Jackson and Timberlake, both such media-savvy performers, doing something so provocative without coordinating it beforehand was awfully suspect. While Jackson was vilified for the incident, Timberlake was let off the hook a lot easier and went on to expand his career in film and music. 

In a 2021 documentary, the incident was indeed revealed to have been a coordinated stunt as many had suspected, but it hadn't gone off as planned. Nonetheless, Timberlake took the documentary's release as an opportunity to apologize, 17 years later. But what really happened after Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction still holds more than a whiff of misogyny in the post-MeToo era.

Fans of Dakota Johnson applauded her directness during a 2019 appearance on "Ellen" when host Ellen DeGeneres began chatting about Johnson's recent birthday party. During what should have been a lighthearted segment on the talk show, DeGeneres asked the actress about the celebration and noted aloud that she hadn't been invited. Johnson wasn't having any of it and explained that DeGeneres was indeed invited, teeing up one of the most awkward exchanges in talk show history. It lasted little more than a minute out of the whole segment and the two ultimately moved on to more friendly conversation, but it made a lasting impression.

It turned out to be more than just a thoughtless gaffe for DeGeneres. It was actually a peek behind the host's reputation for being the so-called "queen of nice." It was an early sign of the tarnishing of DeGeneres' star that would come, branding the celebrity as one of the talk show hosts who are terrible people. In 2020, Buzzfeed reported on the toxic working conditions alleged by workers who saw a different side of the host behind the scenes.

Obviously, troubling workplace incidents are far more serious than the Johnson-DeGeneres exchange. But Johnson demonstrated rare resolve with her simple statement, "That's not the truth, Ellen," a phrase that sparks instant cringe for those who saw the exchange unfold.

Even if you liked her music and her performance as the ditzy Cat in the Nickelodeon shows "Victorious" and "Sam and Cat," you couldn't help being repulsed when Ariana Grande was shown licking donuts with her presumed then-boyfriend at Wolfee's Donuts in Lake Elsinore, California, in a 2015 video clip. This isn't a euphemism; Grande was literally tonguing the baked goods as they sat on a tray out in the open. While some might call this an ill-advised prank pulled by two immature kids, Grande was 22 at the time, which made her seem less like a foolish youth and more like a petulant celebrity. 

The first question that came to most people's minds when they saw that was, "Isn't that some sort of crime?" The answer is yes, but since the owner of Wolfee's had violated safety protocols by leaving the donuts exposed, they opted against pressing charges. The shop's health inspection grade was dropped from an A to a B, and Grande sort-of apologized in a video posted on YouTube to clear the air and save face.

Years later, social media users would witness the Ice Cream Challenge, where licking ice cream in a grocery store and putting it back in the freezer was deemed "entertainment." Though it can't be confirmed that the trend began because of her, it's too coincidental not to suspect that Grande's influence in the food-licking sphere was long-lasting and wide-reaching.

The untamed wildness of youth has led many a celebrity to make poor decisions in the heat of the moment, which are often caught on camera and shared with the world — especially in the smartphone era. But before digital photography was literally everywhere, Hollywood wild child Drew Barrymore created what would have been a viral sensation during her 1995 appearance on "Late Night with David Letterman" had it happened a few years later.

During her interview, which occurred on Letterman's birthday, Barrymore described an act she performed in a club with a friend, in which she did a sensual dance. As a demonstration, she leapt onto the host's desk and recreated the dance, which ended with her lifting her top and then kissing him on the cheek. A stunned audience erupted in cheers as Letterman sat dumbfounded for a moment.

Barrymore discussed the incident during her return appearance to "The Late Show" in 2018, with Stephen Colbert as the host this time. "It's like a distant memory that just doesn't seem like me, but it is me," the star told Colbert. Barrymore has since become a talk show host herself and has grown up considerably in the time since her bizarre TV revelation. This gave the two a chance for a reunion on the set of "The Drew Barrymore Show," when Letterman brought Barrymore to tears when he faked a Zoom call for her birthday — then showed up in person at the studio. This time, everyone's clothes stayed put.