Top 20 Most Controversial TV Moments Ever

The titular Emily moves to Paris to work for a French marketing firm. There she has to navigate her personal and professional relationships in an environment and culture that is new to her. While the show may sound like a delightful dramedy, many have taken exception to some of the stereotyping depicted in the series. Critics have accused the show of portraying French people as lazy, flirtatious, and rude. The character Petra caused controversy in Ukraine as she was depicted as being a petty criminal. The Ukrainian Minister of Culture went so far as to label it “insulting”.

Right from the beginning, “NYPD Blue” set a different tone for broadcast television with its use of foul language, violence, nudity and eroticism. Of course, now, it’s pretty much a given for many series to turn up the raunch factor especially after the success of shows like “Game of Thrones”. During this police procedural’s run, however, primetime audiences weren’t used to such things and many stations didn’t run the series when it debuted. The show received a $1.4 million fine for the episode “Nude Awakening” which depicted the character Connie McDowell briefly walk around nude before taking a shower.

In the season finale, Savior leader Negan makes his on screen debut as prior to this moment, his name had only been mentioned. Having trapped Rick and his crew, Negan states that he’s going to kill one of them in retaliation for the group having killed some Saviors. When he finally picks his target, the camera switches to POV shot as Negan begins to attack the unseen character. Many were disappointed with the ending seeing it as a botched cliffhanger. Things didn’t improve with the season 7 premiere where it’s revealed Abraham was killed followed by Glenn being killed right after. Critics felt the brutality of their deaths was gratuitous and distasteful.

We’ve all woken up from a bad dream but thankfully it’s never undone a whole season of “Dallas”. Patrick Duffy, who plays Bobby Ewing, decided to leave the show. To accommodate his request, his character was involved in a car crash and succumbed to his injuries at the end of season 8. Later, Duffy signaled he wanted to return to the show but his character was killed off. The solution was to have Bobby’s death, and all the events from season 9, be a bad dream Pam Ewing was having. Audiences were shocked to find the previous season they had just watched was wiped away the instant Pam opened that shower door.

Cruise is one the biggest movie stars in the world, so it’s no surprise he stopped by “Oprah” to promote his then upcoming film, “War of the Worlds”. The discussion turned to Cruise’s romantic life as he and Katie Holmes recently began to date and he was rather enthusiastic about the relationship. He was super giddy and jumped up on the couch. It was shocking because no one had seen Cruise in such a manner before this moment. Still, it was better than when he appeared on “The Today Show” and got into a heated discussion with Matt Lauer about the use of prescription drugs in relation to mental health.

The Simpson family have traveled to various locations during the series’ run such as Canada, Australia, Japan, and the UK, to name a few. None of those visits stirred up as much controversy as their trip to Brazil. After a young boy Lisa has been sponsoring goes missing, the family decides to travel to Rio de Janeiro to find him. There was a strong negative reaction to the episode in Brazil. Many felt that Rio was portrayed in a bad light arguing the episode showcased the city as poverty stricken, crime ridden, and infested with rats. The show also used inaccurate stereotypes by having characters dance the conga and speak with Spanish accents. The Simpsons would visit Brazil again to much less fanfare.

On their way home from a Mets game, Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer find themselves stuck in some serious traffic thanks to a parade hosted by New York’s Puerto Rican community. Each character tries to figure out a way to get around the parade. Kramer gets into the festivities, appearing with a Puerto Rican flag. However, later when he lights up a cigar, his discarded match causes the flag to catch fire. He stomps on it to put out the flames. Understandably, many took issue with the flag burning and stomping. Many angry letters were sent to NBC and protests were held outside their New York offices. The scene would be edited out of broadcast reruns.

The VMAs have had their share of controversial moments and the 2013 edition of the awards show was no different. Miley Cyrus gave a performance of “We Can’t Stop” which led straight into a duet of “Blurred Lines” by her and Robin Thicke. Cyrus was transitioning away from her Hannah Montana image, so many people were shocked to see her suggestively dance and twerk up on the older Thicke. In a later interview she stated she wanted to garner more attention as a way to stand out but the judgment she faced in the aftermath was too harsh.

Series finales are tricky to pull off. If not done right, they can be a blemish towards a show’s reputation. The ending for “The Sopranos” is still widely debated due to its ambiguous nature. Tony, along with A.J. and Carmela, is at a diner waiting for Meadow to arrive. The scene is tense with a number of other characters entering the establishment along with quick edits all set to “Don’t Stop Believing.” The final shot is of Tony looking up with the screen cutting to black. Initially, many people thought their feed had cut out due to the abrupt ending. Fans of the show were upset that there’s no definitive answer to Tony’s fate.

O’Connor was already an outspoken artist before her appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in 1992. Her first performance of the evening was well received but it was her second that would really shake things up. She performed an acapella cover of Bob Marley’s “War”. While singing the last verse, she held up a photo of Pope John Paul II and tore it up before tossing it at the camera. The studio was stunned into silence. O’Connor received a lot of backlash for the act which she did to protest the Catholic Church and its role in covering up harm caused by its priests, which many Americans were not aware of at the time.

Stephen Colbert managed to do something quite unlikely – pissing off Trump supporters and the LGBTQ+ community with the same joke. When responding to President Trump’s treatment of CBS journalist John Dickerson, the Late Show host went on a rant that culminated in a punchline implying Trump was only useful at performing oral copulation on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Colbert later apologized to the LGBTQ+ community for his choice of words, but made it clear he did not feel bad offending the President, whose supporters had called for his cancellation, and rejoiced in Trump personally criticizing him for the joke.

In 2004, Justin Timberlake was a surprise guest closing off the MTV-produced Super Bowl halftime show starring Janet Jackson. At the end of their duet, to drive home the song's sexually charged lyrics, JT ripped at Jackson's top. That much was clearly planned. What wasn't planned was that he accidentally exposed her right nipple in the process. Timberlake and Jackson insisted it was an accident, or “wardrobe malfunction” while others speculate it must have been an intentional publicity stunt. Following the incident, the FCC cracked down on TV and tried unsuccessfully to fine CBS, who aired the game, $550 000.

This popular Netflix series is controversial overall due to its primary subject matter of a teen taking their own life, which some experts accuse the show of glorifying. Others argue that it doesn’t do enough to show why main character Hannah’s decision to take her own life is wrong, and warn teens who have dealt with similar issues against watching the series. On top of that, the scene where Hannah actually ends her life is particularly graphic, followed by her mother finding her body.

American Horror Story isn’t a tame show by any standard, but one scene at the beginning of their 2015/2016 Hotel season stands out as particularly gruesome. Gabriel gets high in a seedy hotel room and a strange creature with no discernable facial features emerges from the shadows and advances on him. This is not implied, either – it's shown on screen in graphic detail. While it may seem to have been done for shock value alone, the show’s creator insists that it was meant to depict how substance dependency feels.

It's an episode centered on a family of murderers, a family where one of the three brothers is father to the other two...Also, their limbless mother is stored under a bed, until she's pulled out for sex, and when the inevitable happens and is carried to term, the incestuous clan bury the baby. And believe it or not, it aired on a major US network in prime time. Well, once anyway, before it was banned for several years. This is by far the most gruesome and disturbing X-Files episode. The Peacock Family haven’t shown up since on the program, and probably won’t ever again.

Beheadings, murder and even sexual violence are all par for the course in this series. There is one scene, however, that had many long-time fans saying the show had gone too far. In a season five episode, Ramsay Bolton takes an unwilling Sansa Stark on their wedding night and makes Theon Greyjoy watch. While it wasn't as graphic as it could have been, many found it gratuitous and unnecessary, given that the scene didn’t happen in the books. It even prompted one site to stop covering the series entirely. Sansa did get her revenge on Ramsay the following season, but for many the damage had already been done.

As a spinoff of “All in the Family”, one of the most controversial shows of its day, it’s no surprise that “Maude” also took on some very sensitive subject matter. But while “All in the Family”’s Archie bunker was controversial for his racism and homophobia, Maude turned heads due to her feminism and outspoken liberal values. One episode that caused quite a stir was the two-parter, “Maude’s Dilemma”, wherein Maude discovers she’s pregnant and, after much deliberation, decides to have an abortion. The episode’s original airing caused nearly 7000 protest letters, and even got the attention of United States Catholic Conference.

Always one to poke the bear, South Park produced two episodes primarily dealing with censoring the image of the Prophet Muhammad due to threats of violence from extremists. In a possibly ironic twist, Trey Parker and Matt Stone received real threats of violence, and in response Comedy Central decided to censor the second episode’s visual depiction of Muhammad. While many thought this was part of the joke, seeing as Parker and Stone had their Muhammad wear a bear costume in the first episode, it wasn’t. Comedy Central’s censorship of an episode about censorship did help to drive Parker and Stone’s point home, though.

Ellen DeGeneres's sexual orientation is common knowledge today, but in the ‘90s a major American sitcom having an openly gay lead actor, let alone lead character, was a rarity, to say the least. That was until DeGeneres came out publicly in real life, with her character Ellen Morgan following suit. While the highly publicized coming out episode was a ratings winner, the show was canceled a year later, some argue due to the controversy the episode created. Ellen celebrated the 20th anniversary of her coming out on her talk show with guests Oprah Winfrey and Laura Dern, who were both part of the episode.

Bill Maher is no stranger to controversy, and when he's under fire he typically doubles down and never apologizes. That was until he made an off the cuff joke during an interview with US Senator Ben Sasse when he used the slur. HBO yanked the clip and Maher issued an apology the next day, but the outcry and calls for Maher’s cancellation continued. In his following episode, Maher was joined by guests Ice Cube and Symone Sanders who not only explained to him exactly why what he said was a huge problem, but that this was a teachable moment.