From viral faux-pas’ to terrible judgment calls, celebrities have a unique talent for making the strangest decisions with chaotic results.
Earlier this month Conor Maynard, 31, shocked fans after releasing a song called Hawk Tuah, based on the viral video of a girl making the onomatopoeic spitting noise to describe what ‘makes a man go crazy’ in the bedroom.
The explicit song bragging about sleeping with a woman was labelled ‘vulgar’ by fans. Particularly as The Traitors star Charlotte Chilton recently told Metro.co.uk she was pregnant with the singer’s baby although he is yet to acknowledge the reports.
The backlash was a classic case of a celebrity completely misreading the room. Something famous people are, unfortunately, doing all the time even if well-intentioned.
Lest we forget the time Vanessa Hudgens took to social media to complain about Covid in the most tactless way possible. Or when influencer Charli D’Amelio awkwardly deleted her tweet thanking fans for the viral #HereForCharli trend after she discovered it was actually in support of Charli XCX.
So without further ado, here are seven times celebrities had us wincing.
Every celeb who sang Imagine with Gal Gadot
In perhaps one of the most viral backfires of all time, it’s difficult to beat Gal Gadot’s cover of Imagine, featuring an array of famous faces just days into the first Covid lockdown.
The Wonder Woman star managed to recruit 24 stars to the cause including Natalie Portman, Pedro Pascal, Will Ferrell, Amy Adams and Cara Delevingne.
What was no doubt meant to be a sweet gesture came across as anything but as they each sang in a different key while sitting in their considerably bigger homes compared to the majority of the population.
It swiftly made its mark in meme history and has been mercilessly ridiculed by fans online for its over-earnest nature.
Rita Ora backtracking after her retweet fail
In 2014 the then 23-year-old Rita Ora posted a series of tweets that left everyone cringing in sympathy.
The British artist’s account originally posted a challenge to her almost four million followers that she would drop a new song the following Monday if she got 100,000 retweets.
It was unceremoniously deleted after only 2,000 retweets before the star rushed to double down on the embarrassment.
‘By the way my Twitter got hacked somebody is threatening to release new music I’ve worked really hard on,’ she posted to skeptical fans.
‘Nothing comes out until I’m ready. When it’s ready we will drop music! Luckily I caught the hacker really quickly and deleted the post. Thank you!!’
True or not, the denial fuelled speculation that she was simply covering her tracks.
Kendall Jenner’s infamous Pepsi advert
The Kardashian-Jenner clan is used to their fair share of scandals but few come close to the immense fallout of the poorly thought-out Pepsi campaign with Kendall Jenner front and centre.
The 2017 short film Live For Now showed Kendall Jenner making peace with a police officer at a protest by offering him a can of Pepsi.
The advert was quickly pulled after viewers slammed it for trivialising the Black Lives Matter movement and the ongoing criticism of police brutality in the US.
Pepsi also released an apology acknowledging that they ‘missed the mark’ and that they ‘put Kendall Jenner in this position.’
Sam Smith crying in front of their mansion
Much like their fellow privileged celebrities, Sam Smith did not escape the pandemic unscathed by backlash.
During one strange social media post, they shared images of them crying on the doorstep of their £12million mansion with the caption: ‘Stages of a quarantine meltdown.’
After the inevitable criticism in the comments the singer later apologised for the poorly-received joke on the radio.
‘It was probably bad timing of me, but I use my social media as if it’s just my friends on it.
‘I posted with my humour and stuff, but it just didn’t get picked up very well, but I didn’t mean any malice by it at all,’ they said at the time.
Justin Bieber’s hopes for Anne Frank
Few could have predicted exactly how Justin Bieber’s 2013 trip to Amsterdam would make headlines because it is simply too ludicrous.
After his visit to the well-known Holocaust memorial site, the Anne Frank museum, the site’s Facebook page shared the truly astonishing comment Justin left in the guestbook.
It simply has to be read to be believed.
‘Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a believer.’
The Baby singer was naturally slammed for making the poignant visit about himself and imagining the Holocaust victim as one of his fanbase.
Ashlee Simpson’s lip-syncing scandal
Taking it back to 2004, singer Ashlee Simpson’s SNL debut has haunted her long after she appeared on the show.
As the musical guest she gave a live performance which turned into a complete catastrophe after she was caught lip-syncing her single Autobiography when the wrong track played.
To make matters worse, the singer tried to cover the awkward moment by doing a strange jig-style dance before walking off stage. It has gone down as one of the most notorious fails on live TV.
Twenty years on, the singer reflected that the moment was a ‘humbling moment’ in her career and said she should have refused to perform when her voice wasn’t feeling up to the task.
Natasha Bedingfield’s career-ending single
Last, but certainly not least, we have pop icon Natasha Bedingfield’s 2007 single I Wanna Have Your Babies from her album N.B.
It’s about a woman who keeps getting too serious with men too quickly.
The song bitterly divided critics and provoked passionate responses with one music magazine, Drowned in Sound, penning a letter to the singer about how horrid the tune was.
Meanwhile, the Guardian tore apart the equally wild music video. In many ways, it marked a noticeable decline in her career.
Although the song peaked at number seven in the UK charts, Natasha’s career was never the same again. Both albums she has dropped since have petered out with little fanfare.