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Celebs Who Were Wasted On Live TV

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Live television has never forgiven anyone, and these eight moments prove it.

There’s no edit button on a live broadcast, no producer who can yell “cut” fast enough to save a celebrity from themselves. Nicki Swift’s rundown of “Celebs Who Were Wasted On Live TV” revisits eight moments where stars appeared to lose control of the room, the interview, or their own limbs — on cameras that were rolling for millions. Some of these clips have been dissected for years; a few of the people involved never fully explained themselves.

• Mark Wahlberg’s February 2013 Graham Norton Show appearance saw him interrupt guests Sarah Silverman and Michael Fassbender, sit on Norton’s lap, pinch the host’s nipples, and doze off on the sofa — behavior he later claimed was staged.
• Courtney Love crashed Madonna’s live 1995 MTV Video Music Awards interview with Kurt Loder, throwing cosmetics before climbing onto the stage.
• Kanye West went off-script during NBC’s 2005 Hurricane Katrina relief telethon, telling a visibly stunned Mike Myers that “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”

Mark Wahlberg Turns Graham Norton’s Couch Into a Circus

Wahlberg’s trip across the pond in February 2013 is still one of the most replayed clips of its kind. He barreled into a conversation that was supposed to belong to Sarah Silverman and Michael Fassbender, climbed onto Graham Norton’s lap mid-segment, pinched the host’s nipples on camera, and eventually slumped over and appeared to fall asleep on the couch. Wahlberg later insisted the whole thing was a bit he cooked up for the show — a claim that hasn’t stopped the footage from circulating as one of the wildest guest appearances in the program’s history.

Courtney Love Hijacks Madonna’s VMA Interview

Back in 1995, MTV handed Kurt Loder a live interview slot with Madonna at the Video Music Awards — and Courtney Love decided she wasn’t going to let it go smoothly. She showed up mid-interview, hurled cosmetics in the vicinity of the set, and then hopped onto the stage anyway, turning a straightforward red-carpet-style sit-down into one of the decade’s most talked-about awards-show ambushes.

“George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”

Paula Abdul’s Slurred Morning-Show Segment

Paula Abdul’s January 2007 live hit on Seattle’s Q13 FOX became an instant target for late-night mockery after she came across as slurred and disoriented on air. Abdul later blamed the segment on sound problems and earpiece delays that threw off her timing, but the clip stuck around alongside her already well-documented erratic stretches on American Idol, feeding a narrative she spent years trying to shake.

Bill Murray, Tracy Morgan and Steve-O

Bill Murray’s 2015 stop on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell came right after he’d been out celebrating the final taping of David Letterman’s Late Show — and it showed, when he tumbled off his chair on live television. Tracy Morgan’s 2007 appearance on TNT’s NBA pregame show went sideways when he showed up partially undressed and chaotic on air, and Steve-O’s 2003 sit-down on Canada’s Too Much 4 Much turned into a rambling, self-destructive interview that fit right into his reputation at the time.

Kanye West and Anna Nicole Smith Steal the Show for the Wrong Reasons

Kanye West’s most infamous unscripted moment came during NBC’s live Hurricane Katrina relief telethon in 2005, when he abandoned his prepared remarks entirely and told a stunned Mike Myers that “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people” — a line that outlived the telethon itself. A year earlier, Anna Nicole Smith’s presentation of Kanye West at the 2004 American Music Awards turned heads for different reasons, as her heavily slurred delivery included the now-infamous line, “Like my body?”, directed straight at the audience.

These clips have outlasted the shows that aired them, which says something about how live TV works — nobody remembers the segment that went fine. If you want the flip side of that coin, the moments where stars got caught faking a performance instead of losing control of one, Nicki Swift’s rundown of performers who were caught lip syncing on live TV covers that exact genre of on-air disaster.