Stars Who Had Wardrobe Malfunctions at the Oscars

The Oscars is always a glamorous affair filled with stunning fashion, memorable speeches and historical wins but when the stakes are this high, it is almost inevitable that something will go wrong.

From broken zippers to accidental flashes, many stars have suffered wardrobe malfunctions on the Oscars red carpet. In front of the flashing cameras on the red carpet, anything can happen, so we have inevitably been exposed to some of the stars more embarrassing moments. However, while these celebrities might still be cringing over a decades-old wardrobe mishap, we are constantly impressed by how these ladies have managed to maintain composure. The show must go on!

There is no shame in accidentally revealing too much skin or in having to sew your dress back together during a commercial break — especially when the dress in question is a custom couture gown that most of us could only dream of wearing!

Some of these famous Oscars wardrobe malfunctions made for iconic moments. Take Jennifer Lawrence’s 2013 dress tripping incident, for example, that certified her as one of the funniest and most down-to-earth stars in Hollywood. Or Barbra Streisand’s very see-through 1969 look that will always go down in Oscars fashion history, whether she intended it to or not!

Other stars managed to keep their wardrobe malfunctions a total behind-the-scenes secret until they revealed it years later, proving that there is a lot we don’t see during Hollywood’s biggest night.

See all the stars who gracefully handled Oscars wardrobe malfunctions below!

More from SheKnows

• Emily Blunt's Stylist Calls Out Fans With 'No Sophisticated Taste' After Her Polarizing Oscars Dress

Best of SheKnows

• Every Woman Prince William Was Rumored To Have Dated Before Marrying Kate Middleton

• 30 Celebrities Who Have Bravely Opened Up About Being Sexually Assaulted

• These 50 Movies Are Perfect to Watch After a Breakup

Emma Stone, 2024

As she won the award for Best Actress at the 2024 Oscars, Emma Stone revealed to viewers that the zipper on the back of her dress opened. “My dress is broken,” she said. “I think it happened during ‘I’m Just Ken.'”

Luckily, her wardrobe malfunction didn’t take away from her incredible speech.

Liza Koshy, 2024

While it may not be visible from the red carpet pictures, Liza Koshy was wearing some impressively high heels at the 2024 Oscars. And while they made her look statuesque in the pictures, it also caused quite a stumble on the red carpet. Luckily, she took it like a champ!

Jennifer Lawrence, 2013

We’re sure Jennifer Lawrence would like to forget that her famous fall at the 2013 Oscars ever happened but we can’t think of any star who could have handled the wardrobe malfunction any better.

While walking onstage to collect her Best Actress award for her role in Silver Linings Playbook, Lawrence tripped over her own dress and fell on the steps before graciously recovering in time to accept her award.

“I didn’t want to write down a speech, so I have everything in my head and very, very nervous. They call my name, I’m elated and in shock. You kind of back out, I actually don’t remember what that moment felt like when they said my name. And then I fell and it just erased everything from my mind and my whole brain went blank,” Lawrence said during a 2020 interview on Heather McMahan’s “Absolutely Not” podcast.

“I can look back on it now, I’m a little older now, but for a very long time the whole thing was very sensitive,” Lawrence said.

Emma Stone, 2015

Emma Stone suffered a very brief, but very composed wardrobe malfunction at the 2015 Oscars, when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Birdman.

While adjusting her sequin Elie Saab couture dress on the red carpet, the star accidentally lifted the slit a little too high and revealed her underwear but she still looked good while doing it so who cares!

Jenny McCarthy, 1997

Jenny McCarthy’s first and only Oscars appearance in 1997 in a chic Valentino gown is going on our 90s fashion mood boards but can you tell she’s dealing with a wardrobe mishap in this photo?

“I just remember dying a little bit,” she told Us Weekly in 2017. “[I] walked the red carpet, went to the Vanity Fair party, felt like a million dollars, but I did wonder why it was so tight in the chest all night.”

That evening, she ran into the legendary designer and remembers him plainly telling her, “You’re wearing my dress backwards.”

“He didn’t think it was as funny as I did,” she said. “I just said, ‘I’m sorry, Valentino.’ Needless to say, I’ve never been dressed by Valentino again.”

Honestly, we can’t even tell and McCarthy looks great so maybe her backwards choice was the best styling of the dress after all!

Kim Basinger, 1999

In 2023, Kim Basinger posted old photos of her 1999 Oscars appearance on Instagram and revealed that she dealt with a wardrobe malfunction that went unnoticed by the rest of us!

She recalled walking onstage to present an award when she heard something tear in her Randolph Duke strapless white dress, leaving her fearful that it could fall down.

“I was shaking and I was mortified but I took the stage and I clenched my arms to my sides as tight as they would go… PRAYING… that the dress would not fall off… and I held that sucker up all the way through presenting the award to James Coburn,” the Oscar winner added.

Jenny Slate, 2023

Jenny Slate looked truly stunning at the 2023 Oscars in a black strapless corset gown made custom by Thom Browne. So, we never would have known that anything went wrong unless the Marcel the Shell with Shoes On star told us about it – which she did!

“I get on in there, I sit down and it splits,” she told Jimmy Kimmel in Feb. 2024. Slate explained that she was “sewn” in to the gown “like a living doll,” leaving very little wiggle room.

“And guess what was out? My butt,” she told Kimmel. “I would say it was half crack.”

Venus Williams, 2022

Fortunately for Venus Williams a far more viral moment at the 2022 Oscars (you know what we’re talking about!) overshadowed her brief wardrobe error.

Cameras caught the tennis superstar barely shielding a nip slip while inside the award show when the plunging neckline on her Elie Saab dress revealed a little too much.

Charlize Theron, 2000

Charlize Theron has a celebrity savior to thank for her first ever Oscars appearance being rescued after her nearly backless Vera Wang dress split open.

“When I stood up for the first standing ovation, I felt this kind of cool breeze coming up my tush,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in a 2022 interview. “And I realized my whole butt was hanging out.”
 
When Theron fled to the bathroom in a panic, Best Actress nominee Julianne Moore was ready to help, despite having a big night ahead of her as a Best Actress nominee. Theron said Moore “was on all fours in her gown searching for a safety pin on the floor and she found one.”

Theron was so grateful that when she took the dress to be dry cleaned she had a special request about the safety pin: “Don’t touch it! I want it to stay exactly the way Julianne Moore fixed it.”

“I still have the dress with the safety pin in it,” Theron said. “Thank you, Julianne.”

Barbra Streisand, 1969

Barbra Streisand’s sheer pantsuit at the 1969 Oscars is a moment in fashion history but the legendary star, who won the Best Actress award that year for her role in Funny Girl, didn’t even know how revealing her look was.

“I had no idea that when the lights hit that outfit, it would become transparent! I wanted a white collar and cuffs, which it had, and I wore my hair under my chin, because I thought to myself, I’m going to win two Oscars in my lifetime, and I’ll be more conservative next time,” she told W Magazine in 2016.

Oprah Winfrey, 1986

Oprah might have been nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for her role in The Color Purple at the 1986 Oscars but the superstar still considers it “one of the most horrible nights of my life,” as she told Jimmy Kimmel in 2012.

“I had used Dolly Parton’s dressmaker,” the television host explained. “And he’d come over to [do] some fitting earlier in the day and then said, ‘I need to take it back.'”

“When he brought it back, I didn’t try it on. So when I went to put it on half an hour before going to the Oscars, it didn’t fit,” Oprah continued. “I couldn’t get it up over my hips. So my hairdresser… had to lay me on the floor and push my butt down and zip and so I rode to the Oscars, really no exaggeration, planked in the back of a limousine.”

Issues continued inside the event. “I couldn’t sit in the chair,” she said, “And I had this really heavy beaded collar, so when I sat back, the collar choked me, so I sat the whole night holding on to the collar. And I was praying for someone else to win… ‘Cause I knew I couldn’t get out of the chair.”

Elisabeth Canalis, 2010

In 2010, Italian actress Elisabeth Canalis ripped her dress moments before stepping on to the red carpet with then-boyfriend Geroge Clooney.

According to the New York Post, Canalis’ hair stylist Jonathan Antin revealed that Clooney came to the rescue.

“George said, ‘Hold on a second, I have experience with this. I used to work on suits, honey,’” Antin said. Clooney then “grabbed the needle and thread and started sewing her zipper in. He did an amazing job.”

Judy Greer, 2012

Judy Greer rather hilariously found the humor in her 2012 Oscars wardrobe malfunction when she recounted the moment in her 2012 memoir.

In Greer’s words, “I was invited to the Oscars because the movie I was in for 13 minutes, The Descendants, was nominated. As it turns out, I don’t kill it at the Oscars. So many embarrassing things happened in the course of an hour I almost don’t know where to start.”

“My very first step on the red carpet, someone stepped on the hem of my dress and the beads just started unraveling,” she explains, adding that the dress was supposed to just have one thick silver stripe but by the end of the night, as we can see in this photo, there were several panels of sequins missing.

“It was really hard to hold myself together; I couldn’t believe it was happening. I am not cool; I wanted to cry,” she wrote but we still think she looked great and got a funny story out of it so it is totally a win!

Giuliana Rancic, 2014

E! News host Giuliana Rancic styled out her 2014 wardrobe malfunction on live TV and managed to stay composed while Ryan Seacrest jumped to the rescue.

Rancic looked like a princess in a Paolo Sebastian gown but was left holding it together when her zipper broke during the red carpet pre-show. Luckily she and her co-hosts kept things going and produced another great show.