A live stage is designed to make people look untouchable, and every so often a zipper, a gust of wind or a badly tied cape decides otherwise. What follows are fifty occasions when the spectacle went sideways in front of an audience, a bank of photographers and, in many cases, a live television feed.
Katy Perry Lands In a Giant Cake and Cannot Get Out
By 2008, Katy Perry was still brand new to fame, riding the enormous success of I Kissed a Girl and leaning hard into a candy-colored persona. Her booking at the MTV Latin America Awards called for something loud and silly, and the production team gave her a giant cake to play with.
She jumped straight into it, which was the plan, and came out coated in frosting from her hair to her shoes, which was also roughly the plan. What nobody scripted was what happened next. Every attempt to stand up sent her sliding across a stage that had turned into a buttercream skating rink. The cameras stayed on her the whole time, and the clip has followed her around ever since as one of her most gleefully undignified live moments.