Top 30 Biggest Live TV Disasters

No matter which side you’re on, the Presidential debate of June 27, 2024 was a disaster, and historians will be studying it for decades to come. Trump was Trump, self-aggrandizing and pouring forth his typical flurry of falsehoods and misleading statements. And Joe Biden was little more than a zombie, delivering mumbly, incoherent answers and often staring into the distance with his mouth agape. It was a rather pitiful display by both parties and the public response was swift, with most outlets and pundits calling it a national embarrassment. We’re not saying this debate is what caused the Democrats to lose the election, but…well, yeah, it probably was.

“The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell” is a serious political show that airs on MSNBC. So it was rather odd when Bill Murray quite literally stumbled onto the set. Murray was on “Letterman” earlier that day, on which he did a number of vodka shots, then he went out to dinner and had some wine. Then, apparently deciding that he wanted to talk politics, he wandered over to the NBC lot and barged onto the “O’Donnell” set, completely uninvited. The people on the show look quite confused, even a little irate, as the actor tumbles off chairs, interrupts everyone, and slurs out messy sentences. Luckily, this is Bill Murray we’re talking about here, so we don’t mind too much.

Did you know that Chevy Chase had his own talk show? We’ll forgive you if you didn’t, as it only lasted six weeks. Chase signed a $3 million contract with Fox, who hoped that the famous comedian would carry them for years. It was a disaster from the start. Chase was an awful host, stiff and awkward with his guests, and the show was filled with cringeworthy skits and terrible monologues that consistently failed to land. The oversized desk and awkwardly spaced furniture only added to the uncomfortable atmosphere. Fox, realizing that it was beyond saving and tired of being the national laughingstock, axed the show after just 29 episodes. And that’s how Chevy Chase made the worst talk show in television history.

Reality star and podcast host Gemma Collins partook in the 2017 “BBC Radio 1’s Teen Awards,” presenting the trophy for Best TV Show (“Love Island”, by the way). Shortly after declaring the winner, Collins turned and fell straight through an open trap door. Luckily, she was not hurt - in fact, she even laughed it off. The plan was for the trap door to open and the show’s stars to emerge from the stage. The BBC claims that Collins received a full briefing about the plan, so maybe she just got caught up in the excitement and forgot. Still, it seems like some safety precautions should have been put in place here…

Many outlets have described “First Night 2013 with Jamie Kennedy” as “ the worst New Year’s Eve special ever.” It’s not hard to see why. Aired on local channel KDOC-TV, the special was hosted by Jamie Kennedy and was a complete, unmitigated disaster that reeked of cheapness. The show was riddled with terrible audio and production issues, and many people appeared to be heavily intoxicated, which only added to the special’s surreal atmosphere. They couldn’t even get the countdown right, ringing in the New Year a full ten seconds late because Kennedy couldn’t find a clock. Like…seriously, guys? And then the show ended with an unscripted fight on stage, because of course it did.

The Super Bowl is arguably the biggest night of the year, so you’d think the hosting stadium would have their power system figured out. You’d certainly think. Super Bowl XLVII took place on February 3, 2013, with the Ravens playing the 49ers. Shortly into the third quarter, the lights in the stadium went out, the result of a tripped relay. The game was delayed for a full half hour as the stadium’s management figured out the situation and attempted to get the lights back on. It was a total mess, and many people even suspected a conspiracy, as the 49ers were able to stage a partial comeback following the gigantic break. As linebacker Ray Lewis asked, “You’re a zillion-dollar company, and your lights go out?”

Poor Brian Collins is never gonna let this one down. In 2005, Collins was a student at Indiana’s Ball State University, and on this particular day he was taking over from the regular sportscaster on the campus’s independent news program. He was tasked with covering a recent NBA game between the Pacers and Nets, but the teleprompter went too fast, forcing Collins to ad-lib. What follows next is the stuff of internet legend. The disastrous broadcast became one of the earliest viral videos, being shared far and wide for Collins’s humorous attempts at sportscasting. Attempts being the operative word here. At least it gave us some legendary laughs - and a legendary catchphrase.

On September 2, 2005, a bunch of celebrities got together to host a benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina. The broadcast largely went off without a hitch. That is, except for Kanye West’s segment, because of course he veered off script. West was presenting with Mike Myers when he ad-libbed a lengthy statement about the portrayal of Black individuals in the media. He then ended with one of the most famous statements in live TV history. Equally as famous are the reactions of both Mike Myers and Chris Tucker, both of whom give the most “what the hell bro?” faces possible. Even if you acknowledge the veracity of what West said, we can all agree that this probably wasn’t the time or place to say it.

Here’s an idea - maybe don’t do magic tricks involving giant sharp nails on live TV. You might traumatize a few kids. “Question for Breakfast” is a Polish variety show hosted by Marzena Rogalska, who on this particular episode was asked to be a guinea pig in a magic trick performed by Marcin Poloniewicz. The magician places a giant nail under one of four paper bags and proceeds to slam Rogalska’s hand into the bags. It seems to be one of those tricks that mixes magic with legitimate danger and, well, you can probably guess what happens. Rogalska was quickly ushered out of the studio and taken to a hospital. Luckily, she was OK.

That’s a nice way of saying "falling for a meanspirited and racist prank”. On July 6, 2013, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crashed at San Francisco International Airport, killing three people and injuring nearly 200. Local San Francisco channel KTVU were reporting on the crash when they fell for a horrible prank. Anchor Tori Campbell was reading out the supposed names of the pilots, only these names had been replaced by racist puns related to the crash. No one knows who is personally responsible for the prank, but the National Transportation Safety Board has admitted that an intern confirmed the names to the station. The intern was fired in the wake of the controversial broadcast, as were three producers at the station.

Back in the early ‘50s, ABC aired a live sci-fi anthology show called “Tales of Tomorrow.” Each episode was broadcast as it happened, so, naturally, there were a few disasters. One such blunder came in the first season episode “Frankenstein.” Legendary actor Lon Chaney Jr. played the monster - only, he wasn’t very good. Chaney broke character and refused to destroy the props. Instead, he mimed the actions and gently placed the furniture on the ground. According to Chaney’s biographer, Don Smith, the actor had been drinking and falsely believed that he was conducting a rehearsal - hence the breaking of character and ginger treatment of the props. Chaney later admitted that he thought it was a dress rehearsal, but he denied that he was drunk.

This was the television event of the ‘80s. And it all came to a big, hilarious nothing. Construction companies found secret rooms before beginning to renovate Chicago’s Lexington Hotel, which once housed legendary gangster Al Capone. Naturally, people believed that these rooms may house valuable objects once belonging to Capone’s organization. Recently-fired reporter Geraldo Rivera then hosted “The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults,” which hoped to reveal the chambers’ contents on live television. The event was heavily advertised and watched by thirty million people. The IRS was even on scene to scoop up Capone’s giant pile of hidden money. Except, there was no pile of money. In fact, there was nothing at all. The live special deflated like a balloon and immediately entered the annals of live TV disasters.

Hey, accidents happen. Even to the biggest entertainers on the planet. Madonna showed up at the 2015 Brit Awards to perform her new song, “Living for Love.” This being Madonna, the performance was expertly choreographed and featured a fun wardrobe change. Only, it didn’t go so well. The plan was to have a black cape ripped from Madonna’s back, revealing her sparkly black and red outfit underneath. Unfortunately, this cape was fastened too firmly around her neck, and when one of the dancers ripped it from her back, she came with it. Madonna fell off the stairs, hit her head on the stage, and ultimately suffered whiplash, but she continued the performance as if nothing happened. Now that’s a consummate pro.

German R&B group Milli Vanilli were extremely popular in the late ‘80s, winning the Grammy Award for Best New Artist and scoring five top five hits in the United States. But everything started crashing down on July 21, 1989. During a live performance on MTV, their hit song “Girl You Know It’s True” began to skip, indicating that they had been lip-syncing. Furthermore, a man named Charles Shaw came forward and declared that he had sung on their debut album, not the credited Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. This accusation, plus the disastrous live TV performance, eventually culminated in the truth - Morvan and Pilatus were imposters. They were fired by music producer Frank Farian, and Milli Vanilli quickly disappeared from the public consciousness.

Poor Ashlee Simpson. She’s never going to live this one down. Back in October of 2004, Simpson appeared as the musical guest on “SNL” in support of her debut, Autobiography. She performed both “Pieces of Me” and the album’s title song. Well, she performed “Pieces of Me.” When the music began for “Autobiography,” the pre-recorded vocals of “Pieces of Me” played over the speakers instead. Panicked and not knowing what else to do, Simpson awkwardly danced off the stage and left her musicians to fend for themselves. Both the lip synching and the singer’s reaction received enormous backlash, and the incident was widely parodied.

It was November 22, 1987, and thousands of Chicagoans were hunkering down to watch some TV. At 9:14 pm, WGN-TV was airing the news when their signal was hijacked. Instead of sports clips, the TV now showed a person in a Max Headroom costume rocking back and forth. This lasted almost twenty seconds. A few hours later, at 11:20, WTTW’s airing of “Doctor Who” was interrupted by seemingly the same person. This was a far more complex hijacking. It lasted about a minute and a half and contained talking, singing, crude props, middle fingers, and even a bare behind. This was the ‘80s version of trolling, and the trolls got away with everything. Despite an investigation, no one was able to find the source of the hijacking.

This could very well be the funniest blunder ever seen on national television. On May 8, 2006, tech expert Guy Kewney was scheduled to interview live on the BBC concerning a recent court case involving Apple. However, the staff mixed him up with Guy Goma, a business graduate who happened to be interviewing at the BBC on the same day. Goma was ushered on stage, quickly wired up, and soon launched into a live interview with host Karen Bowerman. Goma tried his best to answer the questions, but it was very obvious that something was off, especially considering the shocked reaction that Goma conveys at the beginning of the interview. And the worst part of it all? He wasn’t even hired.

This 2002 soccer game was between West Bromwich Albion and Sheffield United. United goalkeeper Simon Tracey was given a red card less than ten minutes in, prompting manager Neil Warnock to make a substitution. He later made two more for strategic purposes. Managers are only given three substitutions per game, so he was now unable to add new players. What followed was a pure comedy of errors. Two players were kicked out for physically attacking their opponents, and two others were taken out with injuries. This left United with just six men - less than the seven allotted by the rules. The referee was forced to end the match for this infraction, making this English football history’s only game to end on a player shortage.

Live TV is fascinating. You can follow a national news story in real time, and you can also watch it deflate in an instant. On October 15, 2009, the country watched enraptured as a gas balloon floated through the air with a six-year-old boy supposedly trapped inside. However, the boy was later found in the attic of his home, prompting allegations of a hoax. This was seemingly confirmed during a live interview with Wolf Blitzer, when the boy said his family “did this for the show.” A law enforcement affidavit later concluded that the parents had planned the hoax in an attempt to drum up interest for “future media interests.” The Heene family continues to deny that it was a hoax.

Steve Harvey may be a consummate professional, but he will always be remembered for a simple bungle. At the conclusion of Miss Universe 2015, Steve Harvey declared Colombia’s Ariadna Gutiérrez the winner. However, he awkwardly bumbled his way back on stage and told the crowd that he had messed up. Gutiérrez was actually the “1st runner-up,” and the Philippines’ Pia Wurtzbach was the real winner. Harvey had gotten confused while reading the results, as “1st” was located beside Gutiérrez’s name. The mistake made headline news, became an internet sensation, and continues to haunt Harvey to this day. Just fourteen months later, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway took some of the heat off Harvey by announcing the wrong Best Picture winner at the 89th Academy Awards.

On December 31st, 2016, Mariah Carey joined Ashlee Simpson in the cringy “I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, Just Get Me the Heck Out of Here” Hall of Fame. The legend was set to perform “Emotions” and “We Belong Together” on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest” when she experienced some unfortunate technical difficulties. During the first track, she reportedly couldn’t hear the backing track, and instead of soldiering on, she just sort of ambled about the stage. Carey talked in a passive aggressive manner to the audience while her dancers continued as planned and the odd whistle note emanated from the speakers. The second “performance” meanwhile could be described as an entertaining but hilarious mess.

During a live quarterfinals performance on “America’s Got Talent,” stuntman Ryan Stock swallowed a steel rod with a target attached to the end. This target poked out of his mouth and was supposed to be shot with a flaming arrow by his fiancée, Amber Lynn Walker. This seems like a bad idea, not only from a safety standpoint, but a live TV standpoint as well. A stunt like this can go catastrophically wrong, and it nearly did. The flaming arrow ended up pegging Stock in the throat, causing him to grimace in pain and quickly pat away any potential flames. The judges and audience watched the stage in silent worry before host Nick Cannon assured everyone that Stock was OK.

Kanye West thought that Beyoncé had [“one of the best videos of all time!”] Well, we think this is one of the most unforgettable live TV disasters of all time! It was the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, and Taylor Swift had just won for “You Belong with Me.” By winning, she beat out Beyoncé’s iconic “Single Ladies” video. As Swift accepted her award, West infamously stormed the stage, grabbed the mic from her hand, and claimed that Beyoncé should have won. He probably expected cheers but got boos instead, prompting him to turn and made an obscene gesture at the crowd. It was an incredibly shocking moment that even earned the attention of President Barack Obama, who called West a not-so-nice name.

Back in the late ‘80s, TV presenter Anthea Turner was hosting a live children’s program called “UP2U.” Turner was on location reporting on a pageant conducted by the British Armed Forces. A motorcycle stunt was planned for Turner’s story, but miscommunication resulted in a horrible accident. As Turner was sitting on the back of a truck, the pyrotechnics exploded in her face and set her on fire. Families watching from home were understandably shocked and frightened, as they did not know the extent of Turner’s injuries. She ended up suffering numerous burns and temporary hearing loss, and she successfully sued the BBC.

An infamous piece of TV history occurred on the night of February 1, 2004 - AKA Super Bowl 38. As everyone knows, Justin Timberlake accidentally ripped off the outer layer of Janet Jackson’s shirt while performing a dance move, briefly revealing more than intended. This instigated a national discussion the likes of which has rarely been seen before or since. It was front page news across the country, with some calling it an indecent act of American immorality. Janet Jackson ended up blacklisted by many radio stations and television music channels. It also led to the creation of YouTube and added the term “wardrobe malfunction” to the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. Talk about an unforgettable halftime show.

Sinéad O'Connor was once the biggest name in music. Her single “Nothing Compares 2 U” was especially successful, topping the Hot 100 for 4 weeks and being named 1990’s #1 world single by Billboard. But then her career essentially came to a halt on the night of October 3, 1992. She was performing Bob Marley’s “War” on “Saturday Night Live” when she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II. The move was meant to protest abuse within the Catholic Church, but it only got O'Connor into heaps and heaps of trouble. NBC received thousands of complaints and other celebrities, including Joe Pesci and Madonna, viciously criticized her actions. And that was pretty much it for Sinéad O'Connor - at least as a chart-topping pop star.

Injuries notwithstanding, the Battle of Bramall Lane was borderline comedic. Malice at the Palace was, well, malicious. This was a basketball game between the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers. With less than 46 seconds left in the game, Pacer Ron Artest fouled Piston Ben Wallace. Wallace’s physical response to Artest’s act resulted in a brawl. The fight was brief, but then someone in the crowd threw a drink at Artest, prompting him to storm into the stands. He attacked who he thought was the thrower, when in reality this person was innocent. People attempted to pull Artest off the man, the situation escalated to include spectators, and before long, all Hell had broken loose. The police intervened and numerous people were charged with assault, including players and fans alike.

The 1989 World Series is perhaps the most famous of the modern era. Not because of the games, but because of what happened before one. Shortly after the pre-game ceremony began for game three, the Loma Prieta Earthquake struck San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, interrupting the video feed and distracting sportscasters Tim McCarver and Al Michaels. Viewers at home were met with loud static, a “technical difficulties” graphic, and the creepy sound of screaming fans. Luckily, no one within the stadium was injured, despite its extensive shaking. In fact, the game is credited with saving lives, as people usually on the roads were either at the game or watching from their homes.

Back in the mid ‘80s, actor Richard Belzer hosted a cable talk show called “Hot Properties.” To promote the first WrestleMania, Belzer hosted the event’s marquee stars, Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. Belzer asked Hogan to demonstrate a wrestling move, so Hogan put him in a chinlock. However, Hogan took the bit a little too far and ended up knocking Belzer unconscious. He then dropped the limp Belzer to the ground. Belzer played it off after waking up, but it was obvious that he had been hurt. Belzer later sued Hogan for an undisclosed amount. He bought a farmhouse in France with the proceeds, which he named Chez Hogan.

Back in August of 1988, a man named Gary Stollman strolled onto the set of KNBC and held TV presenter David Horowitz hostage. Stollman held a weapon to Horowitz’s back and ordered him to read a rambling manifesto filled with conspiracy theory gibberish. Viewers at home only witnessed the initial attack, as the feed was intentionally cut shortly afterwards. Horowitz then obliged the gunman, who was not aware that he had been taken off the air. The manifesto ended with the revelation that Stollman was actually holding an unloaded BB gun, and he placed it on the desk beside Horowitz. Stollman was promptly arrested and later pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor of false imprisonment, resulting in three years’ probation.


Did you happen to catch any of these live? Let us know in the comments below!