Top 10 Disastrous Live Performance Blunders

Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for live performances that went so wrong, so fast.

#10: Beyoncé’s Run-in with a Fan

When you’re this famous, fans always want a piece of you. This time, we mean that literally. Audience members at Beyoncé’s 2013 Montreal concert captured a potentially show-ending mishap between Queen Bey and a stage-side fan. While singing “Halo,” the pop icon found that her hair had become tangled up in the fan’s blades. Her voice faltered for only an instant before she went right back to singing while her team attempted to free her from the machine’s grip. The clips quickly went viral. Beyoncé was a good sport about it, rewriting some of the song’s lyrics to address the event in an Instagram post.

#9: Nicki Minaj’s Zipper Trouble at the MTV Video Music Awards

The chart-topping rapper is one of the most confident and audacious artists out there. But a distracting wardrobe malfunction at the 2014 MTV VMAs shook her confidence. As Nicki Minaj ran onstage to join Jessie J and Ariana Grande for their huge hit, “Bang Bang,” viewers noticed she was holding the front of her dress the entire time. As she told Ellen DeGeneres afterward, her zipper busted while doing a quick change from the outfit she wore during her “Anaconda” performance; and there was no time to fix it before her cue. She put in a good performance, but it’s easy to tell she was distracted.

#8: Sia’s “Good Morning America” Performance

“Chandelier” is probably one of the most vocally demanding pop songs. Those incredibly high and powerful notes don’t come easy, even for the artist who wrote and first performed it. In fact, Sia is known for her voice cracks. They’re a part of her style. But during this 2016 performance on “Good Morning America,” her voice didn’t just crack. It was gone. She struggled through her hit song, with some expletives and frustration creeping into the performance. Sia copped to being incredibly nervous beforehand. She was afraid she didn’t have the voice to hit her usual notes that day. Whatever was going on with her voice, it’s a performer’s worst nightmare.

#7: Iggy Azalea’s Audio Issues on “Dancing with the Stars”

She’s so fancy, but not when she can’t hear the track. Australian rapper Iggy Azalea appeared on the season 18 finale of “Dancing with the Stars.” Millions were tuning in, and the pressure was high. When she started performing too early, she suddenly panicked and told the crowd there was something wrong with her earpiece. Instead of rapping behind the beat, she just silently made her way down the stairs as the track kept playing. She didn’t start again until the chorus. By then, it was time for Charli XCX to come out and save the show. Well, there is one upside. At least we know she wasn’t lip-syncing.

#6: Madonna at the Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest garners millions of viewers a year. In 2019, over 182 million people across the world tuned in to see four hours of Europop goodness. And they had a huge get for the year’s halftime performance. The queen of pop herself, Madonna, performed a medley of her hits across the decades. However, it didn’t exactly go as planned. Madonna’s pitchy and off-key performance was a shocker. It also heavily overshadowed her would-be controversial onstage political statement. A heavily pitch-corrected version later appeared on Madonna’s official YouTube channel. But anyone who tuned in live heard what really went down.

#5: Mariah Carey on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve”

Ringing in the year 2017 turned disastrous once the song “Emotions” started to play. Mariah Carey instantly realized something was wrong. She began telling the crowd she couldn’t hear the track. The technical failure led to her spending the whole song half-heartedly doing some choreography and commenting on how they didn’t have a sound check. Watching Carey narrate her frustrations is almost as entertaining as the planned performance would’ve been. Unfortunately, she faced a lot of blowback for the disastrous performance, and there were competing narratives about what went wrong. But it didn’t stop her from returning with a real powerhouse performance the following year.

#4: Fergie’s National Anthem Performance at the NBA All-Star Game

What separates many musicians is style. That’s why we have our favorite renditions of “The Star Spangled Banner.” But that’s also why it can go very, very wrong. Fergie at the 2018 NBA All-Star Game is a perfect example. The former “Black Eyed Peas” vocalist definitely put her own spin on the national anthem. Her jazzy, groaning approach was definitely a choice. Dropping entire letters from the ends of words and sending her voice on side quests, she created an instant viral classic. The players were actively trying not to laugh, but by the end, it was impossible not to. Artistic license is one thing. This was a misfire of epic proportions. But sometimes, a bad performance is its own reward.

#3: Ashlee Simpson’s Lip-Sync on “SNL”

Bombing on the “Saturday Night Live” stage is no laughing matter. Ashlee Simpson found that out during her 2004 appearance. Taking the stage for her second song of the episode, her vocals on “Pieces of Me” began to play. The problem was she’d already sung that track earlier that night. She had lip-synced and was planning to do so again for her second performance. Her awkward jig as she leaves the stage just puts a period on the cringe. Simpson explained the incident by blaming her band at the end of the episode. Later, she explained that she woke up with no voice and lip-synced as a last resort. It was a blemish on her burgeoning career that didn’t go away for a while.

#2: Milli Vanilli’s Track Skips on “Club MTV”

Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus were taking the world by storm in 1989. Known by the name Milli Vanilli, the duo were one of many groups formed by superproducer Frank Farian. An infamous “Club MTV” performance made clear what people already suspected. Their hit song, “Girl You Know It’s True” began skipping, revealing that they were lip-syncing the whole time. This led to a snowball effect. Farian revealed that they had not even sung on their own records. Although he was pulling the strings, Morvan and Pilatus shouldered the brunt of the criticism. This culminated in having their Grammy Award rescinded. Their careers never recovered.

#1: Janet Jackson & Justin Timberlake at Super Bowl XXXVIII

This wardrobe malfunction is still one of the biggest scandals in music, television, and sports history. At the end of their electric Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2004, Justin Timberlake was supposed to tear away a piece of Janet Jackson’s costume. A little too much tore away. Suddenly, for a split second, Jackson’s bare breast was broadcast live to millions. Needless to say, this violated the FCC’s rules about indecency in televised broadcasts. CBS was fined as a result. Timberlake escaped a lot of the scrutiny, but Jackson’s career and reputation took a major hit.

What moments did we miss? Let us know in the comments.