Top 10 Most Offensive Celebrity Halloween Costumes

To start our list, we have country star Jason Aldean, who for some reason thought it would be a good idea to dress up as fellow musician Lil Wayne. His costume choice is on par with the rest of his fellow trick or treaters, but Aldean’s is particularly offensive to the eyes because of his use of blackface – a makeup choice that is seen by most to be not only be in incredibly poor taste, but also highly racially insensitive. Sure, the kitty cat and lumberjack ensembles may’ve already been taken, but there had to be less offensive costume options available.

This next entry isn’t a costume as much as it is a hat, but as far as hats go, this one’s pretty inappropriate. Nicole Polizzi, a.k.a. “Snooki”, chose to wear a milk carton on her head so that it looked like she was the photograph of a missing child. While the costume is one of the more original ones on the list, it’s highly offensive to anyone who has actually lost a child. In Snooki’s defense, she made this costume choice in 2010, when “Jersey Shore” was at its most popular, and the reality star was pretty much expected to act like a hot mess. But today, with Snooki now married and a mother-of-two, the joke hasn’t aged so well.

Dressing up as a “sexy” anything for Halloween is already questionable – not that we haven’t all done it at one point or another. But going as a “sexy” stereotype of a First Nations person when you’re a blonde white woman is offensive to people actually of Aboriginal descent. Paris Hilton does have a reputation for being a ditzy blonde, which makes it difficult to be mad at her for this one stupid choice, even though she should’ve known better or at least had people to know better for her. Unfortunately this poor choice in costume almost certainly inspired a string of similar and equally offensive costumes from celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Ellie Goulding.

It’s one thing for a celebrity to dress up as another celebrity. But to dress up as a dead celebrity? That’s unacceptable. Apparently Bill Maher doesn’t agree, because the television host chose to dress up as the late “crocodile hunter” Steve Irwin, who died when a stingray’s barb pierced his heart. His costume included the barb itself protruding from his chest. If that doesn’t make you mad enough, the Australian animal lover died in September of 2006, and Maher wore the costume that Halloween, less than two months after his death, which was insulting not only to fans of the animal expert, but also to Irwin’s very real friends and family.

Halloween is meant as a way for us to become someone else for a day. You would think that people would take this opportunity to dress up as something or someone they aspire to be, like an astronaut, or a doctor, or Oprah. So what could have possibly driven NBA player Dwight Howard to spend the holiday dressed as a homeless man? Especially since the athlete is involved with a foundation that supports homeless youth! We’re just going to chalk this one up to poor judgment on his part, and let it go. But seriously, was that sign really necessary?

Heidi Klum’s Halloween costumes are always unforgettable, but she’d probably give up her Halloween candy if it meant everyone would forget the time she dressed as the Hindu Goddess Kali. In the past, Klum has dressed as Lady Godiva, complete with real horse, a raven, reminiscent of the Edgar Allen Poe poem, and a skinless human. Not only are her costumes unique and edgy, but you can tell the amount of effort she puts into them as well. Her costume in 2008 was just as well put together, but it was the idea rather than the execution that left people upset, especially Hindus, who felt that she was disgracing the sacred figure, not honoring her.

Well, this is awkward...Adrianne Curry, the first winner of America’s Next Top Model, dressed in an Amy Winehouse costume in 2009, complete with wig, and a syringe for injecting drugs. The costume was inappropriate then because it was making light of Winehouse’s serious drug abuse, but looking back on it today, knowing that the “Back to Black” singer would die from her addiction only two years later, the costume has become prophetically offensive. Curry couldn’t have known what would happen, but the fact that she would mock someone’s addiction in the first place is questionable enough.

Chris Brown has never really been known for his moral compass. But no one expected him to show up to Rihanna’s Halloween party dressed as a member of the Taliban. Even harder to believe is that he didn’t show up alone – instead he brought a whole terrorist cell full of bad taste. This means at least five people thought this costume choice was acceptable - five people who never apologized and instead just maintained that they meant no disrespect by it. But if they weren’t looking to offend maybe they should have just gone with a different, safer group costume...

Back it up with whatever thinking you’d like, but it is never, under any circumstances, acceptable to wear blackface. This is a rule that someone clearly forgot to mention to Julianne Hough, who in 2013 chose to dress up as the “Orange Is the New Black” character “Crazy Eyes.” It’s all fine and dandy if you want to emulate someone on TV, but if that character is of different race than you, maybe accept that you won’t be totally authentic. Luckily for the Dancing with the Stars judge, Uzo Aduba–the actress who plays Crazy Eyes–held no grudge about the incident. While Hough claimed she did it out of her love for the character, she apologized nonetheless.

Before we reveal our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

- Nadya ‘Octomom’ Suleman as a Nun with Devil Children

- Raffi Torres as Jay-Z

- Dwyane Wade as Justin Timberlake

- Ashley Benson as Cecil the Lion

Based on his history of teenage rebellion, it should come as no surprise that the royal wild child would be on this list. Prince Harry was in the tabloids all too often during his younger years, but none of those appearances had quite the shock value of him wearing a swastika armband. Okay, so this technically isn’t a Halloween costume since it was worn at a “colonial and native” themed costume party held in January 2005, but the Prince still decided to dress as a Nazi. Worse still, Harry’s choice of outfit appeared to be the desert variant– a uniform only worn by German’s Afrika Korps- making the whole thing semi just that extra bit racist.

Do you agree with our list? What’s the most offensive Halloween costume you’ve ever seen? For more entertaining top 10s published every day visit WatchMojo.com.