1.
Eddie Murphy appeared to accidentally reveal that he and fiancé Paige Butcher had gotten married while appearing on The New York Times podcast The Interview. On the podcast, he referred to Butcher as his wife twice. The two got engaged in 2018, but no wedding has been announced.
2.
Elizabeth Olsen similarly called Robbie Arnett her “husband” while participating in Variety’s Actors on Actors. “I also just noticed that my husband put Little Miss Magic…” she began, referring to a book in the background of her Zoom screen. You know, the Little Miss books? They’re these classic books but ‘magic’ because of WandaVision because he’s such a f**king cutie!” She and Arnett later confirmed on SiriusXM that they had eloped.
3.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Grimes accidentally revealed the existence of her second child with Elon Musk. The journalist interviewing Grimes, Devin Gordon, noticed a baby repeatedly crying upstairs. Asking Grimes if she’d had another child, Grimes replied, “I’m not at liberty to speak on these things.” However, when the journalist asked Grimes if she really thought they wouldn’t be able to hear the baby, Grimes laughed and replied, “I don’t know what I was thinking,” confirming she’d had a second child.
4.
Billie Eilish inadvertently revealed that she’s queer in an interview with Variety. “I’ve never really felt like I could relate to girls very well. I love them so much. I love them as people. I’m attracted to them as people. I’m attracted to them for real,” she said in the interview. “I’m physically attracted to them. But I’m also so intimidated by them and their beauty and their presence.”
She later said she didn’t mean to come out. “I didn’t realize people didn’t know,” she told an interviewer at a Variety event. “I just don’t really believe in it. I’m just like, ‘Why can’t we just exist?’ I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I just didn’t talk about it. Whoops.” She continued, “But I saw the article, and I was like, ‘Oh I guess I came out today.’ OK cool. It’s exciting to me because I guess people didn’t know, but it’s cool that they know.”
5.
Sarah Paulson also said she inadvertently revealed her sexuality at the Tonys in 2005. Her partner, Cherry Jones, had just won a Tony, and Paulson kissed her. “All of a sudden, I was outed. I didn’t really think about it in that way at the time — I was just doing what one would do when a person they love has just won a big fat acting prize,” Paulson said. “What am I gonna do, pat her on the back and say, ‘Good job, dude?’ It didn’t occur to me to do anything but what I did.”
7.
Constance Wu accidentally confirmed that her second child was a boy while appearing on the podcast Pretty Smart. After briefly mentioning her son, she said, “Oh. Breaking news. Nobody knew I had a son; I just said that on here. … That’s fine.”
9.
Sienna Miller did the same in an interview for her Vogue cover issue. After the interviewer asked if Miller’s other child, then 11-year-old Marlowe, was excited to be an older sibling, Miller accidentally replied, “To have a sister?” Afterward, she confirmed the news, saying, “I’m having a baby girl.”
10.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan also accidentally told the world that he and his wife, Hilarie Burton, were expecting a girl. The slip-up happened at a Supernatural fan convention. Afterward, Morgan posted a fan photo of the moment, writing, “I texted @hilarieburton right after I spilled the little girl beans… and, as usual… she was a rockstar. After all these years she’s come to expect me to be a dope… thank god she gets it, and loves me regardless.”
11.
Back in 2015, Katy Perry posted a video of her dog on Instagram and Twitter. What she didn’t realize was that the dog’s tag — showing her phone number — was visible in the video. Perry quickly deleted the video and deactivated her number after receiving many calls from fans.
12.
Mike “The Situation” of Jersey Shore fame accidentally tweeted his phone number in 2012. He quickly realized his mistake, writing, “Oo s—” and “My phone is ringing off the hook. We def have a Situation.” He was apparently trying to privately send his number to a woman.
13.
Hoda Kotb also accidentally revealed her phone number on a Today show segment on smartwatches, leading to a hilarious and chaotic few minutes of fans trying to call her.
14.
Howie Mandel accidentally told the world about his OCD diagnosis on Howard Stern’s radio show in the late ’90s. A guest had apparently touched the door after touching their genitals, and Mandel did not want to touch the door with his hands. “They thought it was funny, and I get it. I think it’s funny, too, to try to get me to…torture me to touch the door, but I started having a panic attack. And I said to him, ‘Please,’ because he’s a friend. I said, ‘Please, Howard, you know I have…I’ve been diagnosed with something called OCD. I’m medicated, and if you don’t open the door now, I can tell that you’re gonna have to call 911. I’m gonna pass out.” They opened the door, but then Mandel realized the show was still broadcasting live. He had not yet told the public about his OCD.
“I walked outside devastated after that happened on Howard Stern, thinking this was the end,” he continued. “Number one, I had embarrassed and humiliated my kids and my family, who were in school at the time, talking about…that their dad is mental. And I’ll never work again — who’s gonna hire somebody that has a mental health problem? And I didn’t know what to do. I was contemplating running straight into traffic in Manhattan there, standing on the sidewalk, when somebody came up to me and said, ‘Are you Howie Mandel?’ And I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he said, ‘I just heard you on Howard Stern.’ And my heart just sunk into my stomach, and I go, ‘This is it.’ But then he went, ‘Me too. … I suffer from it too, and it was so good to hear you talk.'” Mandel then started receiving letters from others thanking him for speaking on his condition. He would later become much more open about it.
15.
This isn’t necessarily his fault, but behind-the-scenes photos of Prince William working as a search and rescue pilot for the British military inadvertently revealed a bunch of classified information (mostly usernames and passwords) when they were posted on an official site dedicated to Will and Kate and reposted several news sites. The photos were quickly pulled or altered, and the usernames and passwords were changed, but it was still a massive oversight — especially considering the photos were taken by a Ministry of Defence photographer.
16.
George Lucas accidentally let slip that Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher would appear in the Star Wars reboot back in 2013, before their casting had been announced. “We had already signed Mark, Carrie, and Harrison — or we were pretty much in the final stages of negotiation,” he told Bloomberg Businessweek before quickly trying to dial it back. “Maybe I’m not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them. … I won’t say whether negotiations were successful or not.”
17.
Prue Leith, a judge in The Great British Bake-Off, accidentally spoiled the winner of Season 8 of the show in a tweet a few hours before the finale aired, which she quickly deleted. “I am so sorry to the fans of the show for my mistake this morning; I am in a different time zone and mortified by my error,” she tweeted afterward.
18.
Chrissy Teigen accidentally admitted to having had three boob jobs during an episode of Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live. In the segment, she was supposed to be trading lies with fellow guest Kate Chastain, but instead, on her very first turn, she told the truth instead, saying, “I’ve had my boobs done three times.” She later fessed up, revealing she’d told the truth.
19.
The Bachelorette alum Jason Tartick pretty much spoiled the winner of the most recent season of The Bachelor when he announced that then-current Bachelor Joey Graziadei and contestant Kelsey Anderson would be on a future episode of his podcast. The moment was later edited out of the podcast, but fans who caught it took it to mean that Anderson received the final rose, which would be proven true shortly after.
20.
Spike Lee accidentally revealed who won the coveted Palme d’Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021. At the beginning of the closing ceremony, Lee, the jury president, was asked to read out the first category (in French) but instead stated the winner of the festival’s largest award. “I’m a big sports fan. I’m like the guy at the end of the game who misses a free throw or a kick. No apologies. The people of Titane said, ‘Forget about it, Spike,’ that means a lot to me,” Lee said afterward, saying he “messed up, simple as that.”
21.
And finally, this one isn’t quite accidental, but Rihanna did not mean to reveal her pregnancy during her iconic Superbowl halftime performance. When her costume wouldn’t zip, she decided to go with it and rub her stomach during the performance, which led fans to believe she was pregnant. She ended up confirming the news a week later.