21 Celebs Who Opened Up About What Red Carpets Were Like Before They Were Mega-Famous
Walking the red carpet at a movie premiere or major awards show seems pretty glamorous, but for celebs who are just starting to carve out their place in Hollywood, it can actually be pretty intimidating.
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Here are 21 celebrities who opened up about what carpets were like before they were mega-famous:
1.For the Mean Girls premiere, Amanda Seyfried "used the only money [she] had to buy a dress," but without a stylist to guide her, she "didn’t know any of the rules, so [she] was wearing a white bra and black underwear and no slip."
On Jimmy Kimmel Live, she said that she spent $600 on the dress, did her own hair and makeup, and walked home from the premiere.
When the host asked why the production studio didn't help her cover any of the costs, she replied, "I slipped through the cracks, because I didn't ever ask for anything — because I thought I was in the way. Which is not how I want to raise my daughter, for sure."
2.While promoting Slumdog Millionaire before he had a stylist, Dev Patel wore his school blazer on the red carpet.
However, the team at Burberry reached out to help and dressed him for the 2008 Oscars.
3.After Precious premiered, Gabourey Sidibe wasn't able to afford a stylist, so she bought a Torrid prom dress to wear to the Cannes Film Festival — but she wasn't properly informed of the fancy dress code.
In her memoir This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare, she wrote, "I was told that the dress code was ‘casual'...That was a lie."
4.When Kelly Clarkson attended one of her first awards shows, people "were really mean to [the American Idol cast] 'cause [they] were from a talent show and it was the first season."
On The Kelly Clarkson Show, she said, "Everyone was so rude to us, like, on the carpet, at the show…It was so bad!"
5.During the early years of her career, Blake Lively "wore Forever 21 much longer than [she] admitted," but people shamed her so much for it that she decided to just lie that it was vintage.
She told Glamour, "They said I shouldn’t admit to [wearing Forever 21], like it was more impressive to have a designer gown that’s thousands of dollars. After that I just told people it was vintage."
6.On her first red carpet, Viola Davis had a panic attack — "one of two panic attacks [she's] ever had in [her] entire life."
The day before the ceremony, Meryl Streep, who wasn't able to attend the event, had asked Davis to accept an award on her behalf if she won.
Davis told Today, "That led to the panic attack, along with the red carpet."
7.In 2005, when Nicole Kidman gifted an acting class tickets to her movie premiere, Laverne Cox was the only student to walk the red carpet — and the only person to take her picture was a photographer testing his camera.
"I was so humiliated. I was just trying to have some dignity and some pride after...being completely ignored," she told E! News.
8.Before she was working with superstar celebrity stylist Law Roach, Zendaya pulled a head-to-toe Target outfit from her own closet for her very first movie premiere.
She told InStyle, "And I thought I was fly. I felt cool. To this day, I think that's really all that matters. Then you know you're doing the right thing."
9.Eva Mendes needed her very first red carpet dress for the The Others premiere in 2001, so she found one for $6 at Goodwill.
On Instagram, she said, "I’ve always loved a cheap find. Viva thrift shops!”
10.When Destiny's Child was first starting out, high-end designers refused to dress them, so Tina Knowles, Beyoncé's mom, designed their outfits — including the dress Beyoncé wore when she won her first Grammy.
Accepting her Fashion Icon award at the 2016 CFDA Fashion Awards, Beyoncé said, "When I wore these clothes onstage, I felt like I had an extra suit of armor. It was so much deeper than any brand name."
11.Tiffany Haddish planned to return her $4,000 Alexander McQueen dress after the Girls Trip premiere, but when she wasn't able to get her money back, she decided to make the most of it by re-wearing the dress to other major events for the next five years.
She told People, "The dress has made me the money that it cost, plus, at this point."
12.For her first movie premiere, 13-year-old Natalie Portman walked the red carpet in a Betsey Johnson dress she'd worn to a bar mitzvah a few weeks prior, and she thought she was "the most glamorous person in the world."
She told the Hollywood Reporter, "I thought it was really beautiful."
13.The first time Carly Pearce attended the ACM Awards, she was "the first person on the red carpet," and when someone asked her who she was wearing, she replied, "I don't know."
She told One Country, "I was terrified — so terrified. Just deer in the headlights."
14.Looking back at the champagne-colored dress she wore for her first red carpet at the I Am Sam premiere, Dakota Fanning doesn't "cringe too much" and feels "definitely more of a warm nostalgia."
She told Jimmy Choo, "I [also] had a purse that was black patent and shaped like a present, which I thought was very chic. I am sure I still have it somewhere."
15.For her very first red carpet, Liza Koshy “went to Wet Seal and bought a bodycon dress and heels from Forever 21.”
While shopping in a shut-down Balmain store with Vogue to prep for the 2019 Met Gala, she looked at all her potential Met Gala outfits and said, "I’ve never worn anything like this before."
16.Kate Hudson "felt like the hippest, coolest girl in the world" when Stella McCartney dressed her for the 2001 Academy Awards — her "first and only nomination." When she found herself on every “Worst Dressed” list the next morning, Hudson said, “I called Stella and we just laughed our arses off and she said to me, ‘Look babe, it was the hair wasn’t it?’”
Presenting the designer with an award at the British Fashion Awards, Hudson said, "To this day that now vintage dress hangs in my wardrobe, but I swear one day I'll wear it again. But Stella, I promise I'll do the hair differently."
17.At her first Oscars, 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld was intimidated by the sheer enormity of everything and felt "like the room was massive"
She told People, "It was the biggest carpet I'd ever been on and ever seen."
18.When Elsie Fisher walked her first red carpet for the Despicable Me premiere, "it was super bright out, so [her] agent was really nice, and she gave [her] these sunglasses, but [she] ended up looking like a total diva."
She told W Magazine, "It’s so funny to look back on the photos. I was probably closer to seven at the time."
19.For her first red carpet premiere, 11-year-old Victoria Justice was already comfortable posing in front of the camera because her mom "has documented [her] and [her] sister ever since [they] were babies."
She told Cosmopolitan, "I wore these awful, like, palazzo black pants, and this coral shirt, and these ballet flats. It was just so far from my style today...I think they were just clothes from my closet. I was just like, 'Oh, yeah, this is cute. This is going to be great!'"
20.When Demi Lovato walked the red carpet at the Disney Channel Games in 2008, they had their very first stylist, who always put new clients in bow ties — so Demi felt like they just had to go along with it.
They told Allure it was the "worst red-carpet moment of [their] life."
21.And finally, before her first red carpet in 2002, 12-year-old Kristen Stewart "was being weird about" her baby hairs, so she just cut them off.
She told Marie Claire UK, "I had like these little things poking out from under my hair and behind my ears, and a ridiculous outfit. I did not know how to get dressed up at that age at all — I didn't even know what I liked."
