We Can’t Believe These Awkward Celeb Interview Moments Actually Aired on TV

During The Avengers promotional tour, it seems that many entertainment reporters had a very specific question in mind for Black Widow actress Scarlett Johansson. Jerry Penacoli, an Extra reporter, actually asked Scarlett whether or not she wore anything under her superhero suit in the film.

She was obviously annoyed by this line of questioning, saying that he was “like the fifth person that’s asked me that today.” She then added, “What is going on? Since when do people start asking each other in interviews about their underwear?”

Lindsey Lohan has definitely had a complicated career — which is why she asked the production team of The Late Show to steer clear of certain sensitive topics during an interview on the show in 2013. Sadly, David Letterman didn’t respect her wishes.

He continuously brought up the facility she wanted to get help from, asking if she stole things and how she managed her money. Despite her repeated requests to move on from the topic, he wouldn’t let it go, finally bringing the young star to tears.

We’ve gotten used to seeing celebrities take all manner of disrespect and probing from talk show hosts with a smile and a joke. So, seeing Dakota Johnson actually snap at Jimmy Fallon was certainly strange.

While it might have been awkward to watch, and probably to live through, we definitely support Dakota for calling Jimmy out on his constant interruptions of her story. We know that talking is literally in their job title, but shouldn’t that also involve their guests talking?

This interview has become pretty infamous since it aired in 1994. It seems that Letterman tried to get Madonna to act in her usual flashy manner. Unfortunately for him, she was having none of that.

Despite his many attempts to get her to kiss a random audience member (for no reason), Madonna shut it down before asking him, “Why are you so obsessed with my [love] life?” She definitely called him out on his attempt to stir up unnecessary drama.

During an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2009, Megan Fox shared her experience of working with Michael Bay when she was just 15 years old on the set of Bad Boys II. Instead of sitting by the bar, Bay had the underaged actress dance under a waterfall in a bikini, cowboy hat, and heels.

“That’s sort of a microcosm of how Bay’s mind works,” she shared. Jimmy then replied, “That’s really a microcosm of how all our minds work. Some of us have the decency to repress those thoughts and pretend that they don’t exist.” The awkward interview was, of course, later called out for how horrible that comment was.

This awkward interview has turned into one of the more well-known red carpet moments for Shailene Woodley thanks to how incredibly weird the whole exchange was. In a conversation that has become infamous, Shailene is asked by a reporter if she’s hungry.

After the star gave her a strange look and told her that she wasn’t, the reporter answered that she was starving. In the most deadpan voice, the actress replied, “Well, you should probably eat” before quickly walking away.

Honestly, this interview moment definitely goes beyond awkward into extremely gross and weird territory. The incident occurred during The Late Show in 1998 as David Letterman interviewed Jennifer Aniston. Midway through their conversation, Letterman suddenly scooted close and told her he “just want[ed] to try one thing.”

He then held her head in place and put a strand of her hair in his mouth! Even as she tried to get away and attempted to laugh the horrible moment off, he did it again, then handed her a napkin to wipe her hair off as if nothing had happened. So gross!

We’re not quite sure why both Dakota Johnson and Ellen DeGeneres feature prominently on this list. But, it might have something to do with Dakota being socially awkward, and Ellen just being sort of rude.

These two shared a horrible interview moment when Ellen claimed to be offended that Dakota didn’t invite the host to her birthday party. Only, the actress did invite her — Ellen just never attended. That was definitely a cringy moment.

It seems that tabloid reporters will forever be interested in famous women’s love lives — as if it was the only interesting thing about them. For example, during the launch of her cologne Rogue Man in 2014, a journalist just couldn’t help but ask, “What are you looking for in the next man?”

Rihanna, the queen that she is, asked the woman to repeat the awkward question and then clearly answered, “I’m not looking for a man. Let’s start there.” Really, this question should have never been brought up during a professional interview.

One thing that a talk show host has to know before an interview is how to properly pronounce their guest’s name — it’s just basic respect and courtesy. It seems that Ellen DeGeneres thought she was above that when she interviewed fellow comedian Hasan Minhaj.

When she mispronounced it twice, he corrected her and insisted that she get it right. He explained, “When I first started doing comedy, people were like, ‘You should change your name.’ I’m like, ‘I’m not gonna change my name. If you can pronounce Ansel Elgort, you can pronounce Hasan Minhaj.'”

As she’s proven over many years of interviews, Ellen DeGeneres loves to dig in when it comes to things she thinks are facts. She did just that with Taylor Swift in 2012 when the singer went on to promote her album, Red.

The host kept insisting that Taylor and Zac Efron used to date, despite the singer repeatedly telling her that it wasn’t true. Once she eventually let that go, she asked Taylor increasingly uncomfortable questions about her love life. It’s no wonder Taylor snapped at her.

This interview has definitely made the internet rounds with how awkward it was. While promoting The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, Anne Hathaway was consistently asked by Extra reporter Jerry Penacoli about her body, her fitness regime, and her diet.

Anne was having none of these stupid questions as she tried to repeatedly steer the conversation toward more interesting topics. Watching the interview, you could tell that she was getting progressively more annoyed by this line of questioning until she blurted out, “Are you trying to lose weight? What’s the deal, man? You look great.”

During an interview on The Late Night back in 2015, Jennifer Lawrence decided to come clean about her formal crush on the talk show host, Seth Meyers. She confessed that, when she hosted Saturday Night Live in 2013, she fell for him.

“I had this whole plan. I was going to ask you out,” she said. “And I started, thank God, talking to the wardrobe lady about it. I said, ‘I think I’m going to ask Seth Meyers out. I’m going to give him my number.’ She was like, ‘Honey, he’s engaged.'”

Talk show hosts love surprising their guests. They also love playing pranks on them (just look at Ellen constantly trying to jump-scare her celebrity “friends”). Graham Norton decided to play a little trick on a guest in 2014, which ended up being pretty awkward.

He convinced Spice Girls’ mega-fan Emma Stone that her music idols were about to come into the studio, claiming that she would be meeting them very soon. It turned out to be a cruel joke, of course, leaving Emma visibly disappointed.

David Letterman has definitely had a career filled with controversial interviews, especially when it came to female celebrities. He certainly made things awkward for America’s sweetheart Taylor Swift back in 2010 when he started sniffing her.

If he would have commented that her perfume smelled nice, that might have been fine. Instead, he decided to say that she smelled “like expensive wood,” and then went into specifically describing the type of wood.

Back in 2011, viewers were shocked to hear Whoppie Goldberg let out a surprisingly loud fart during a live shooting of The View. It seems that truly Whoopie Goldberg was more of a whoopie cushion at that moment.

In a later episode, she tried to make light of the situation by “clearing the air.” However, in 2014, she let it rip once again during an episode — although she claimed it was simply a sound effect that time.

As Taylor Swift mentioned in several interviews with her, it seems that Ellen is absolutely obsessed with Taylor Swift’s love life, including pairings that never actually happened. Such an exchange happened on the promotional tour of The Lorax.

Ellen kept insisting that her two guests, Taylor and Zac Efron, were a couple — despite them repeatedly telling her they’re not. It seems that Ellen liked the awkward joke so much that she kept it up and pestered Taylor about the nonexistent romance in their next interview.

While promoting Honey, Jessica Alba opened up on The Late Show about feeling vulnerable and nervous during the scenes that had her dressed like an exotic dancer. She shared that she was nervous about being so exposed.

Letterman then decided that this was the perfect time to pry into those insecurities that she clearly didn’t want to expand on by asking increasingly inappropriate questions like “how tiny was it” and “where was it tiny” referring to her outfit. Yuck.

Fans of The Ellen DeGeneres Show were certainly shifting uncomfortably in their seats after seeing this awkward interview with Katy Perry back in 2017. During a game of “Who Would You Rather Marry?”, it was revealed that Ellen had completely forgotten Katy’s love history.

In response to Katy asking, “Do I have to get married again,” Ellen confidently (and mistakenly) responded, “You were not married.” Forgetting Katy’s strange marriage to Russel Brand definitely made this an awkward moment.

This interview ended incredibly awkwardly when the star being interviewed, Robert Downey Jr., decided to walk out of the studio. This was due to the host going off script and trying to dig into Robert’s family, as well as his difficult past.

Robert was clearly uncomfortable with the personal line of questioning, saying that the subject was inappropriate given that the interview’s point was to talk about superhero movies. He exclaimed that this would be inappropriate given that children might see it.

This interview is far from the first time that Sofía Vergara’s English (be it vocabulary or accent) has been made fun of. Apparently, Ellen thought it would be absolutely hilarious to make a game out of words Sofía would find difficult pronouncing.

Spoiler alert — it’s definitely not funny. Instead, it’s just an incredibly awkward moment. Honestly, Vergara should be highly respected for crafting an incredibly successful career in a second language, because that really is impressive.

Much has been said over the years about Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s Super Bowl performance in 2004. One person who refused to let this go was David Letterman, especially during an interview with Janet.

Despite the singer practically begging Letterman to let the subject drop, the host kept pestering her with endless invasive questions. She looks extremely uncomfortable throughout the whole segment. When she said she truly wanted to put it behind her, Letterman has the audacity to reply, “Well, not me!”

The strangest interactions can happen during celebrity interviews. This moment happened sometime after Dakota made a visit to the orthodontist to remove her retainer. As a result, her famous tooth-gap closed naturally.

Jimmy then shared his own toothy story — having one fake tooth. Wanting to check if it felt real, Dakota tapped on Jimmy’s teeth. He then returned the favor and tapped her teeth. Who would have thought people could have an entire conversation about teeth?!

It’s often remarked upon that some actors look exactly like each other — like Bryce Dallas Howard and Jessica Chastain, for example, or Jaime Pressly and Margot Robbie. Do you know what two actors really don’t look like identical twins? Samuel L. Jackson and Laurence Fishburne.

But, that’s exactly the mistake that Sam Rubin of KTLA news made, asking Jackson about a commercial that Laurence actually participated in. Jackson rightfully called him out — “We don’t all look alike. We may be all black and famous, but we don’t all look alike.”

You know an interview is going to go downhill fast when the interviewer can’t even get the guest’s name right. That’s what happened when Cara Delevingne was promoting Paper Towns on Good Day Sacramento. The interviewer actually called her “Carla.”

It’s really no wonder that Cara was visibly irritated afterward. Still, the reporter had the audacity to mention that she didn’t seem as excited about the movie promoted as she had “during previous appearances. Or is it just us?” We absolutely understand why she decided to cut the interview short.

It seems that stand-in hosts make just as many mistakes as the professionals. At least, that’s what happened when Dua Lipa filled in for Jimmy Kimmel as the host of his show to interview Gwen Stefani.

She probably should have done a bit more research before asking her questions, as she found herself in the awkward position of asking Gwen about her husband, Blake Shelton. Only, they weren’t actually married then. Gwen corrected her sweetly and they both laughed awkwardly. Whoops.

Once upon a time, Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber’s love life was one of the most interesting celeb relationships for the tabloid media to cover. But, that’s been old news for years. Selena is still awkwardly asked about it on occasion, though.

When this reporter decided in 2013 to pick the topic up again with the actress by asking her about something that Justin had done, Selena was completely done with the conversation. So much so, that she actually cut her feed without another word and left the reporter hanging.

Back in 2018, during a video interview with an Australian morning show, Kourtney Kardashian had quite an odd moment. Just after she was asked about how her sister Kim was doing in light of controversies at the time, Kourtney suddenly seemed to talk in hushed tones with someone off camera.

She then stayed quiet for several minutes, seemingly ignoring the interviewers’ questions. After a commercial break, she returned and explained that her publicist team was trying to get her to stop the interview. She did apologize for her seemingly weird behavior, but it was still quite awkward to watch.

It seems that Dakota Johnson just can’t help but be caught in awkward situations. This one feels especially cringe-worthy as she was joined by her mother, Melanie Griffith. During the height of Fifty Shades of Grey mania in 2015, the duo was cornered by a reporter who asked Melanie whether she would watch her daughter’s famous movie.

The veteran actress responded that she didn’t think she would, due to the very intimate and explicit scenes the film has become famous for. The look on Dakota’s face quite clearly showed that she was quite hurt by her mother’s refusal.

Foreign promotional interviews for films can often become quite awkward — mainly due to the actors not sharing the same language and culture as the reporters asking them questions. This reporter’s question was just plain weird, though. In Russian, she asked Justin if showbiz wasn’t enough for him, and “Why movies?”

Mila quickly answered for him, shushing him when he tried to figure out what was going on. She asked the reporter, “What else would you have him do? If he wants to make movies and he can, why shouldn’t he?”

Both Jason Segel and Paul Rudd are incredibly funny on their own, so putting them together is bound to be hilarious. This joint interview from 2014 promoting their film I Love You, Man certainly proved that to be true — except for the poor reporter.

It feels as if Jason and Paul were just completely out of it as they just decided to goof around with one another as the reporter watched in confusion and discomfort. It’s arguably one of the funniest interviews we’ve ever seen, but we do feel kind of bad for that unfortunate interviewer.

Jim Carrey has played a whole host of kooky characters throughout his career that all make him fascinating to watch on screen. But, seeing him embody his strange characters in real life is pretty awkward, with this interview being particularly memorable.

In 2017, the actor randomly showed up on the New York Fashion Week red carpet, claiming he was there because he searched for the “most meaningless” event to attend that day. He then ranted for several minutes about how “icons” and “personalities” didn’t really exist.

Sharon Osbourne is quite a flamboyant character, so it’s almost no surprise that she too has had awkward moments on air. This particular one happened due to an unfortunate oral hygiene incident.

Midway through a sentence, Sharon suddenly swore, put her hand in her mouth, and said, “My tooth is falling out.” While it was only a tooth implant that ended up dislodging, the entire moment was quite strange all around.

While talking about a woman’s age isn’t as much of a taboo subject anymore, someone being repeatedly reminded of their rising age during an interview when they weren’t prepared for that is still not a great look — especially when the person in question is Jane Fonda. But, that’s what happened on the Today show while Jane and Robert Redford were promoting their 2017 film, Our Souls at Night.

The host, Megyn Kelly, kept going on and on about how great Jane looked for her age. “You’re an example to everyone in how to age beautifully and with strength and unapologetically,” Kelly gushed. “You admit you’ve had work done, which I think is to your credit, but you look amazing.” Awkward!

When appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show to promote his comedy project, The Messiah Complex, Russell Brand found himself in quite an uncomfortable situation. The hosts clearly didn’t do any research about their celebrity guest, and so they came up with completely irrelevant questions.

They actually asked if he has a Messiah complex (a serious mental illness). They then clearly didn’t know how to handle Russell’s brand of humor, completely unable to keep up with his wit. So, instead, they talked about how they couldn’t understand his accent as if he wasn’t there with them.

You would think that having two experienced talk show hosts sitting down for a fun interview would be doubly as good as having just one host. In the case of Wendy Williams’ guest appearance on The Ellen Show, you’d be very wrong.

Right off the bat, the vibe was somewhat uncomfortable and the dialogue between the two was stunted. It got worse when they started playing “Heads Up.” Trying to get Ellen to guess Justin Bieber, Wendy quipped that Ellen resembled him. The host clearly was offended by this statement, making everyone uncomfortable.

One of the biggest jobs that the host and crew of a talk show need to make sure they actually do is researching their guests properly. Wendy Williams clearly didn’t do it and what followed was an incredibly awkward moment.

The interview started weirdly with Wendy complimenting Billy Ray Cyrus excessively, which he was clearly uncomfortable with. It later devolved when she completely forgot his daughter’s name. She was referring to Noah Cyrus obviously, but that’s just bad hosting skills.

This awkward moment was only saved thanks to how gracious and sweet this guest is, otherwise, it could have been a terrible disaster. It happened when Kathie Lee Gifford interviewed Martin Short on Today during the promotional tour of Madagascar 3.

As the host asked about his private life, she mentioned Martin’s wife, Nancy Doleman, saying that the two have a beautiful marriage and she asked what their secret was. Unbeknownst to her, Nancy had passed away two years prior. Martin was a real champ, though, and just rolled with it.

Here’s another example of an interview that was awkward due to a host’s lack of research. Back in 2010, when Standley Tucci was promoting The Lovely Bones, he appeared on The View. It was here that one of the hosts asked an innocent question — although it was an awkward one in hindsight.

Elizabeth Hasselbeck asked the actor if his wife has had the chance to see the movie yet. The only problem was that his wife had passed away just a little while prior. With grace, Tucci answered, “My wife had read the book and the first thing she said was, ‘You can’t do that.’ And she might have been right.” Elizabeth later apologized.

Celebs are often called out for the silliest things. This one, though, has to be one of the most ridiculous instances of an awkward interview. In 2007, Ellen DeGeneres decided to grill Celine Dion on her son’s hair, despite Celine being there to promote a new album.

“It seems like you’re busy with something because you’re forgetting to cut your son’s hair,” the host commented. Celine clapped back, saying that she just can’t please anyone, so she just let her kid decide when to have his hair cut.