A wardrobe malfunction is a clothing failure that accidentally exposes a person's intimate parts. It is different from deliberate incidents of indecent exposure or public flashing. Justin Timberlake first used the term when apologizing for the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy during the 2004 Grammy Awards, saying that he accidentally revealed Janet Jackson's breast instead of just her brassiere. The phrase "wardrobe malfunction" was in turn used by the media to refer to the incident and entered pop culture.[1] There was a long history of such incidents before the term was coined[2] and it has since become common.
The American Dialect Society defines "wardrobe malfunction" as "an unanticipated exposure of bodily parts".[3] Global Language Monitor, which tracks usage of words on the internet and in newspapers worldwide, identified the term as the top Hollywood, California, United States contribution to English (HollyWordie) in 2004, surpassing words like girlie men, Yo! and frass.[4] [5] The term was also one of the new entrants into the Chambers Dictionary in 2008, along with words like electrosmog, carbon footprint, credit crunch and social networking.[6] The dictionary defines it as "the temporary failure of an item of clothing to do its job in covering a part of the body that it would be advisable to keep covered."[7]
The term was first used on February 2, 2004, by singers Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson in a statement attempting to explain the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy, during which Jackson's right breast was exposed. Timberlake apologized for the incident, stating he was "sorry that anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the halftime performance of the Super Bowl..."[8] The term wardrobe malfunction appeared in numerous stories in major US consumer and business publications, newspapers, and major TV and radio broadcasts.[9] Journalist Eric Alterman described the incident as "the most famous 'wardrobe malfunction' since Lady Godiva."[10]
The American Dialect Society had a number of related terms for word of the year nominations in 2004, including Janet moment ("unplanned bodily exposure at a public function"), boobgate ("scandal over Janet Jackson's exposed breast"), nipplegate (like boobgate, "but used earlier in squawk over Jackson's possible nipple ring"), and wardrobe malfunction ("overexposure in a mammary way").[11] People came up with clever terms to describe an occurrence of accidental nudity, like nipple slip or nip slip. The term has been translated into other languages to describe similar incidents, including (Dutch), (French), Italian: disfunzione del guardaroba or Italian: incidente del guardaroba (Italian), and (Spanish).
In April 1957, Italian actress Sophia Loren was being welcomed to Hollywood by Paramount Pictures at a dinner party at Romanoff's restaurant in Beverly Hills. American actress Jayne Mansfield arrived last and went directly to Loren's table. Mansfield had previously engineered several stunts exposing her breasts. On this evening, she was seated between Loren and her dinner companion Clifton Webb. Braless and wearing a deeply plunging neckline, Mansfield at one point stood and purposefully leaned over the table, further exposing her breasts and her left nipple. Photographer Delmar Watson pictured Loren staring at Mansfield's breasts, and Joe Shere also recorded the incident. Shere's picture received international attention, and was published worldwide.[12]
After Brigitte Bardot gained international fame in 1953 as the Bikini girl of the French Riviera, paparazzi popularized revealing accidents or staged events with women's swimwear throughout the decade. For one of many instances, a cheesecake photo of rising starlet Daliah Lavi adjusting her bikini after it broke while at a Rio de Janeiro swimming pool was widely circulated by Associated Press in 1959.[13]
On February 1, 2004, the halftime show of Super Bowl XXXVIII was broadcast live from Houston, Texas, on the CBS television network in the United States. During the show, Justin Timberlake mistakenly removed a portion of Janet Jackson's costume, exposing for about half a second her breast adorned with a nipple shield. This was the first recorded usage of the term "wardrobe malfunction".[14] The incident, sometimes referred to as Nipplegate,[15] [16] was news worldwide. MTV's chief executive said that Jackson had planned the stunt and Timberlake was informed of it just moments before he took the stage.[17] [18] The stunt was broadcast live to a total audience of 143.6 million viewers.[19]
In July 2012, when Australian model Miranda Kerr at one point leaned over to buckle her son into a car seat, she inadvertently revealed her thong to create a whale tail. The Huffington Post described this episode as a "wardrobe malfunction".[20]
The Huffington Post was not the only outlet to describe such an incident as a wardrobe malfunction. In a November 2013 article describing a similar event where English model Abbey Clancy revealed a whale tail while lifting her daughter into a car, the Daily Mirror also described the event as a "wardrobe malfunction".[21]
At the 2016 NFL draft combine, American football player Chris Jones ripped his compression shorts in the crotch during the 40-yard dash, and his genitals were seen live on television.[22] [23]
On August 16, 2023, during a livestream, American internet personality IShowSpeed jumped up from his seat while playing , and accidentally flashed his penis to a live viewership of 25,000 people.[24] He subsequently ended the livestream out of embarrassment. Viewers uploaded the clip onto social media, and the term "IShowMeat", in reference to the slang word meat, meaning penis, began trending on Reddit and X (formerly Twitter).[25]