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"I did that all on my first day of my period, too. Can you believe it?"
1. At the 2009 MTV VMAs, Lil Mama shocked everyone when she got up onstage and started dancing during Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' performance. Apparently, it was her grandma's birthday, so she was in a celebratory mood. "I'm from New York City. So when the song [kicked] up... I got excited, and I went up there," she later said, noting that she was sober. The video's hard to watch — Lil Mama kind of awkwardly walks up to the performers and dances a bit, then copies their ending pose. Oh, and this is after Beyoncé pulls her back, trying to stop her from going onstage.
2. Speaking of the VMAs — when accepting MTV's Video Vanguard Award, Katy Perry made some people cringe after giving a speech about the "noise" female artists deal with, joking about her period and bringing up criticisms after she cut her hair short. This might've been fine, except...periods and haircuts kind of pale in comparison to rampant sexual assault and intimidation in the music industry. Let's not forget that Perry is actively still working with Dr. Luke, who fellow star Kesha accused of rape (the two reached a settlement last year).
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3. In fact, Dr. Luke worked with Perry on her new song "Women's World," which is supposed to be an empowering feminist anthem. Though, this, too, ended up being a cringe moment for Perry, with fans near-universally panning the song and accompanying video as surface-level feminism as seen through the male gaze. Perry later claimed it was "satire."
4. Madonna has had a lottttt of cringe moments. In one recent example, at one of Madonna's concerts, she spoke about her mother's death. She then began singing — and stopped to chastise someone in the audience for not paying enough attention to her. Pointing him out, she said, "Look at him. See, he's wearing like barely nothing. Him! The guy with the T-shirt and chains that looks like he wants to get f**ked right now." She continued, "I just want to point out that while I was singing my heart out about the loss of my mother he was looking around at the crowd … not at me. I'm just pointing out that I f**king pay attention, so you need to pay attention young man! You're going to destroy your ego, right now."
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5. At another concert, Madonna reportedly chastised a fan for sitting during the show, saying, "What are you doing sitting down over there?" Walking forward and apparently realizing the person was in a wheelchair, Madonna said, "Oh, okay. Politically incorrect. Sorry about that. I'm glad you’re here."
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According to a fan, "There’s a part where during the show she asks everyone to stand up. It’s not about who’s sitting/standing during the entire show. Just 1 section she asks for participation. And this time she embarrassed herself."
6. Celebs can be super weird about activism in general, and I have to bring up a few more examples. Like, um, the time AnnaLynne McCord wrote a poem to Vladimir Putin about how things would be different if she were his mother. It's an odd response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to say the least.
7. I genuinely will never forget David Guetta's tribute to George Floyd, and not for a good reason. While livestreaming a DJ set for COVID relief, Guetta said he'd "made a special record in honor of George Floyd," adding "shoutout to his family" before playing an EDM mashup of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and the Hamster Dance song. He then started dancing.
8. I don't know what it is with white celebrities and George Floyd, but Guetta was not the only one to do something weird. Like...why did Heather Morris (y'know, from Glee) take to Instagram to share an interpretive dance piece she'd choreographed in Floyd's honor?
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9. Similarly, Lili Reinhart made some fans cringe when she posted a nude photo on Instagram with a caption about Breonna Taylor. "Now that my sideboob has gotten your attention, Breonna Taylor's murderers have not been arrested," she wrote. "Demand justice."
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She later apologized, writing, "I’ve always tried to use my platform for good. And speak up about things that are important to me. 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 and I’m truly sorry to those that were offended." She continued in a second tweet, "I’ve tried very hard to be honest on my IGTV lives that I’m still learning and trying to be better. But I understand that my caption came off as tone deaf. I truly had good intentions and did not think it through that it could come off as insensitive."
10. Another cringe-worthy example of a celeb trying to do good — and disastrously failing — was when Alyssa Milano tweeted, "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." Milano — who is none of the above, quickly started receiving backlash. Fans were also unhappy with her use of the term "the disabled."
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"I’m glad this tweet invoked conversation. I’m so sorry it offended some. I see you and hear you," she wrote after backlash.
11. Another example? When Tom Hiddleston used his acceptance speech at the Golden Globes to talk about the impact his TV show had on aid workers in South Sudan, leading to some accusing him of trivializing the issue and having an inflated sense of importance.
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After backlash, Hiddleston apologized on Facebook, writing, "I just wanted to say…I completely agree that my speech at the Golden Globes last night was inelegantly expressed. In truth, I was very nervous, and my words came out wrong. Sincerely, my only intention was to salute the incredible bravery and courage of the men and women who work so tirelessly for UNICEF UK, Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and World Food Programme, and the children of South Sudan, who continue to find hope and joy in the most difficult conditions. I apologise that my nerves got the better of me."
12. In another attempt at allyship, I guess, Mark Ruffalo once inexplicably tweeted that "I said a prayer the other day and when God answered me back she was a Black Woman."
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13. Look, I get it. Celebs are trying to say something important and profound. It just...doesn't always land. Like when Kelly Osbourne clearly thought she was making a powerful statement about the value of immigrants on The View...but ended up suggesting immigrants are necessary because they clean toilets.
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After the controversy, Osbourne said she'd made a "poor choice of words" but said she would "not apologize for being racist as I am NOT." Later, she called the moment "the most cringe moment of my entire life" and "the worst thing I've ever done," clarifying she meant, "This whole country is built on immigrants, and if you stop people from coming into this country who do the jobs that make this country exist and thrive and flourish, who's going to do all the jobs that you don't want to do yourself?"
14. I'm starting to think that celebs should sometimes just...stay quiet, y'know? Like, remember when Lena Dunham said that she wished she'd had an abortion? Speaking on her podcast about visiting a Planned Parenthood in Texas, she said she was asked to share her abortion story. "I sort of jumped. 'I haven't had an abortion.' ... I wanted to make it really clear to her that as much as I was going out and fighting for other women's options, I myself had never had an abortion. And I realized then that even I was carrying within myself stigma around this issue. ... It was an important moment for me then to realize that I had internalized some of what society was throwing at us. And I had to put it in the garbage." She continued, "Now I can say that I still haven't had an abortion, but I wish I had."
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After backlash, Dunham apologized, saying, "I truly hope a distasteful joke on my part won’t diminish the amazing work of all the women who participated. ... I would never, ever intentionally trivialize the emotional and physical challenges of terminating a pregnancy.”
15. Then, of course, there's this super cringe tweet from Dunham, who is a cis, straight woman. (Let's also not forget that she outed her sibling to their parents.)
When I go, I want my casket to be driven through the NYC pride parade with a plaque that reads “she wasn’t for everyone, but she *was* for us”- who can arrange?
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) October 2, 2022Twitter: @lenadunham
16. I mean, celebrities aren't necessarily the most educated on current events, social issues, and history. Remember when a fan asked Bebe Rexha where she'd go if she could time travel, and Rexha replied, "I would go to Paris 1940s"? For context, Paris was under Nazi occupation in the 1940s.
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When people pointed this out, Rexha wrote, "Girl I failed history. I just googled it."
17. Moving on from politics...In one of the most embarrassing social media fails to me, Mia Farrow once posted a happy birthday message to her daughter Quincy, accompanied by a photo. Innocent enough, right? Except she forgot to crop the photo and posted it with the search bar visible. To find the photo, she'd searched "Mia Farrow and her black children."
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18. In another online fail, back in 2014, Rita Ora tweeted that she'd release new music if she got 100,000 retweets. It only got 2,000 retweets, and Ora deleted the tweet. She then tweeted, "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."
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19. Jim Carrey's two-minute-long video declaring his love for Emma Stone is definitely one of the more bizarre things I've seen a celebrity do, and whether or not he was joking, it had everyone cringing. In the video, Carrey says, "If I were a lot younger, I would marry you, and we would have chubby little freckle-faced kids. We'd laugh all day long and go camping, play Yahtzee, tell ghost stories by the fire. And the sex..." He trailed off, clearly thinking about sex with Emma Stone.
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Emma took the video in stride, later saying of the video, "Right before that video came out, we were at the MTV Movie Awards. Jason Sudeikis hosted … There was like five of us, and we just went on this tangent of talking nice behind Jim Carrey's back. Jason was talking about how great [Carrey] was when he went to Saturday Night Live and how he was just like a comedic genius. Everyone was kind of weighing in, like 'He's the best. He's amazing.' And so when [the video] happened, we all kind of talked to each other like, 'Weird, that was the guy we were lauding for, like, 30 minutes.' Have you ever done that? Just all sat around a table saying nice things about one person? It was the greatest thing. You walk away, and you were just like, That felt so good, to talk about how wonderful someone is."
20. Ben Affleck made headlines in 2021 after a woman named Nivine Jay posted a TikTok claiming she had matched with Affleck on Raya but unmatched him because she thought his profile was fake. She then alleged that Affleck had reached out to her on Instagram, sending her a video in which he said, "Nivine, why did you unmatch me? It's me!" This might all seem a little far-fetched...except she posted the video Affleck sent.
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21. Most of us remember when Adam Levine got in hot water in 2022 after multiple women came forward with flirty messages he had sent them — even though he's married. "Holy f–k. Holy f–king f–k. That body of yours is absurd," he allegedly wrote in several messages. "F–kkkkkkkkk I'd do anything for it," he wrote in another. Fans reposted the comments, captioning them with their own scenarios like "Me when I see a Klondike Bar."
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But while we may remember the memes, I feel like one of the most cringe-worthy parts of this got overlooked: that Levine's wife, Behati Prinsloo, was pregnant at the time, and Levine apparently wanted to name their child after one of the women he was DMing, Sumner Stroh. Stroh (who claimed the two had an affair) shared an alleged DM from Levine reading, "Ok serious question. I'm having another baby and if it's [a] boy I really wanna name it Sumner. You ok with that? DEAD serious."
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Levine later released a statement admitting to using "poor judgment in speaking with anyone other than my wife in ANY kind of flirtatious manner." However, he denied having an affair. “I did not have an affair, nevertheless, I crossed the line during a regrettable period of my life. In certain instances it became inappropriate.”
22. I will personally never forget James Corden's infamous AMA (Reddit's "Ask Me Anything," where fans can, well, ask the celeb anything). Signing on to promote Carpool Karaoke, Corden was flooded with insults and questions regarding claims about his staff's pay, with the most well-known being a comment from someone claiming to have sat next to Corden at a restaurant and calling him "a massively entitled c*** who yelled and treated the waitstaff like shit." The other comments were so negative that he only answered three before signing off.
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23. Grimes certainly has her fair share of cringe moments, but I think the worst has got to be when she was photographed in this wild futuristic outfit reading The Community Manifesto after splitting from Elon Musk. She later claimed she'd done it to troll paparazzi and "yield the most onion-ish possible headline." Well...she certainly succeeded. The New York Post headline was "Grimes seen reading Karl Marx following split with world's richest man Elon Musk."
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24. Although, I think I may actually have found an even more cringe-worthy paparazzi shot: when Bradley Cooper was photographed with then-girlfriend Suki Waterhouse reading Lolita in a park. Cooper was 38 at the time, while Waterhouse was 21.
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25. There are about a million cringe-worthy Logan Paul moments to choose from — which means some of the smaller ones get overlooked. Like the time he promoted Lunchly (a similar product to Lunchables, co-created by Paul) while his wife was giving birth. "I turned the hospital room into a vibe," he captioned a Snapchat story of his fiancé. The post showed the room decorated with string lights and stocked with the kid's lunch product, zooming in on a pack. Because there's nothing that makes the birth of your child more special than self-promo.
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26. In another moment that made me go "wrong time, dude," The Weeknd teased upcoming news by tweeting "LET'S GOOOOOOO"...right when reports were first emerging about Russia invading Ukraine, leading many to believe his tweets were in reference to that.
Twitter: @_robert_1164
Later, he tweeted, "unfortunately i’m just now seeing what’s happening with the conflict and will pause on tomorrow’s announcement. i pray for everyone’s safety 🙏🏾"
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27. In yet another embarrassing social media snafu, Charli D'Amelio spotted #HereForCharli trending on Twitter in 2021 and tweeted, "Oh my goodness, you are all so sweet to me. You have no idea how much your kind words warm my heart i am so lucky to have you all by my side!! I love you bebs." However, she quickly deleted the tweet when fans pointed out the hashtag was actually for Charli XCX, whose friend, the musician and producer, Sophie, died suddenly.
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28. Zac Efron was also feeling grateful at an inappropriate time. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2016, Zac Efron tweeted out a photo of himself captioned: "I'm grateful for a couple things today: Martin Luther King Jr. & 10 million followers on IG."
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In response to backlash over seemingly equating MLK's contributions with milestones in Instagram followers, Efron deleted the tweet and wrote, "I have nothing but the greatest admiration & respect for MLK. My last post was insensitive & I apologize to anyone who I offended. So sorry."
29. When Bow Wow flexed his luxurious travel plans on Instagram, it seemed like a pretty regular celeb post, complete with a photo of a private jet and the caption, "Travel day. NYC press run for Growing Up Hip Hop. Lets gooo." However, he was embarrassingly exposed when a Twitter user posted a photo of Bow Wow flying commercial, writing, "So this guy lil Bow Wow is on my flight to NY but on Instagram he posted a picture of a private jet captioned 'traveling to NY today.'"
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30. And am I the only one who thought Alec Baldwin's posting a photo of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins as a "tribute" — a year after he held the gun that killed her — was super cringe-worthy? It was captioned "one year ago..." as if it was some kind of nostalgic TBT. It feels especially weird considering he was later charged with involuntary manslaughter for the killing (the case was later dismissed).
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31. One more social media example – when Kardashian hanger-on Jonathan Cheban posted a story on Instagram asking "Should I go live later?" and the answer was "no."
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32. How come no one but me seems to remember when CeeLo Green attempted a disastrous rebrand back in late 2016? He even released a song — "Fuck Me, I'm Famous" — as his alter ego "Gnarly Davidson." He then attended the 2017 Grammys as Gnarly, dressed in all-gold. He later claimed he wasn't at the Grammys, telling TMZ, "That's somebody else altogether, man," really committing to the bit. After releasing a second song about wanting to be with Beyoncé, Green apparently abandoned the Gnarly Davidson persona.
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33. Ariana Grande has a ton of tattoos, and it was no surprise when she got one as an homage to her song "7 Rings." She posted the tattoo — written in Japanese characters — online, and fans quickly pointed out her tattoo actually translated to a charcoal grill. Which is especially awkward considering Ari is vegan.
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In response to online mockery, she tweeted, “Indeed, I left out ‘つの指’ which should have gone in between. It hurt like fuck n still looks tight. I wouldn’t have lasted one more symbol lmao. But this spot also peels a ton and won’t last so if I miss it enough I’ll suffer thru the whole thing next time.” In another tweet, she wrote, “Pls leave me and my tambourine grill alone. thank u.” She later had the tattoo "fixed," though it still didn't correctly translate to "7 Rings."
34. And finally, this one's more straight-up embarrassing than cringe (and I truly feel for Fergie here), but I feel like too many of us have forgotten the moment Fergie peed her pants onstage in 2005. Fans snapped a photo, and it quickly circulated online. She later explained, "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. 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!"
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