The Worst Celebrity Chef Wardrobe Malfunctions Caught On Camera

It's not easy being in the public eye all the time, just ask the celebrity chefs who made it onto this list. Culinary conquerors like Carla Hall and Gordon Ramsay were born to be on camera, but their charisma couldn't rescue them from the wardrobe malfunctions they suffered with everyone watching. Wardrobe troubles are embarrassing, and oftentimes, completely out of one's control. When celebrities experience an outfit fail while the cameras are rolling, they do so with countless people watching. And thanks to the all-seeing eye of the internet, a moment they'd probably like to forget gets replayed over and over again.

For the celeb chefs who had the misfortune of being on camera when their clothing worked against them, many took the instinctual approach and laughed it off. If your pants suddenly get a mind of their own and stage a revolt, it's hard to blame people for laughing, so why not laugh along. Then again, some wardrobe malfunctions are far less funny. Celeb chefs who show up to film a TV show in a NSFW-inspired getup could face some backlash. In one such case, the chef in question had to issue a public apology.

Lest you forget, celebrities are only human, and sometimes humans rip their pants. Wondering which cooking stars faced the biggest struggles in the wardrobe department? From tasteless tees, tricky tops, and unpredictable trousers, these are the worst celebrity chef wardrobe malfunctions that were caught on camera.

Lovable chef and television personality Carla Hall could teach a masterclass on how to not take yourself too seriously. This was expertly demonstrated in 2018, when she hosted The James Beard Awards. For the occasion, Hall, who is known for her whimsical yet chic fashion sense, wore not one, but two outfits onstage. Both looks consisted of elegant, monochromatic separates — one in white and the other in blue. Hall's blue ensemble proved difficult to wear.

Within minutes of the show opening, Hall walked onstage, planning to playfully waltz past the long line of James Beard-affiliated chefs who stood behind the podium. After just a few steps, the toe of her high heel shoe caught the stretch-knit material of her blue, wide-legged pants and tripped her. The nearly 6-foot tall chef went tumbling across the stage. Both of Hall's heels fell off as she rolled past the line of chefs, her legs outstretched in the air. Her spill played out in real time on a huge screen above the podium, but the effervescent chef was laughing more than anyone.

Hall revisited the less-than-graceful moment with co-hosts Michael Symon and Clinton Kelly on "The Chew." Cracking up as they reviewed the footage, Hall explained that once she tripped on her pant leg she knew she was headed for the floor. "I said, I may be 54, but you need to fall like a two-year-old ... I was like, engage the core and just go down."

In her decades-long television career, Rachael Ray has endeared audiences with her quirky authenticity. During her 17-season run with "The Rachael Ray Show" on the CBS network, Ray was able to let her hair down and build a rapport with the live studio audience. This made it easier to laugh it off when her blouse unbuttoned itself during filming.

In 2017, Ray was introducing musical guest Jack Savoretti, however, it wasn't quite business as usual. Ray's black blouse took an unscheduled turn by coming undone on its own and revealing her undergarments. Ray was completely unaware of the wardrobe malfunction until a member of the production team walked over and told her. Being her chipper self, she didn't appear to be all that embarrassed and gave a little shrug as she told the audience, "Oh, my shirt popped open," and uttered a silly little squeal. Savoretti and the audience laughed along with her, clapping and cheering.

Ray played up the snafu by standing before the crowd with her top still open and her black bra visible. She joked that she should have "put the bigger t*ts in today," alluding that her blouse didn't stay in place due to her chest size. "That's fantastic ... that's hilarious" she called out as other members of production helped her get re-situated. The show must go on, so Savoretti, still at Ray's side with his guitar, presumably played his song shortly after.

In 2003, a baby-faced Jamie Oliver filmed an episode of his series "Oliver's Twist", wearing a not-so-innocent shirt that offended a lot of viewers. On the Season 2 episode, titled "Jamie and the Soccer Girls,"  a casually-dressed Oliver explained that he was going to cook for his neighbor's soccer team. His laid-back look included a green, crew-neck shirt with the words "Tamil Tigers" on the front. Did Oliver think the Tamil Tigers were a sports team? Whatever the reason, the shirt was a bad move.

The Tamil Tigers are no sports team. They are a Sri Lankan rebel group that killed thousands of people and forcibly recruited child soldiers to carry out their atrocities. The Tamil Tigers, or The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), formed in 1976 and have been banned from distributing propaganda in many countries, including Canada, the United States, Australia, and the U.K. — Oliver's native land. When the episode aired, over a dozen complaint calls and emails came in from viewers in Australia and New Zealand, and local media outlets also picked up the story.

Oliver and his team swiftly apologized, insisting the chef had no knowledge of the terrorist group's existence let alone their violent crimes. Oliver had gotten the shirt in America, and meant no harm by wearing it on his show. In re-runs of the episode, the lettering on Oliver's problematic shirt is blurred out.

Over the years, James Martin, British TV chef of "Saturday Kitchen" and "Saturday Morning" fame, has been a regular on cooking segments of daytime talk show "This Morning." Anyone who has caught a few clips of Martin's live cooking demos knows there's rarely a dull moment with this guy. On an October 2021 episode, Martin popped into the studio kitchen to share some of his favorite butters and whip up a cake topped with miso fudge. That's when Martin's screen time hit a bit of a snag.

Martin's general enthusiasm for butter and his cheeky on-air confession that he'd been eating too much miso fudge were a grim foreshadowing. "This Morning" presenter Phillip Schofield joked to co-host Holly Willoughby that Martin had wheels on his feet so people could roll him around after he'd filled up on butter and sweets. As the pair giggled near the end of the kitchen island, Martin confessed that he had in fact, just split his trousers.

Martin chuckled along with the hosts, but it was clear the wardrobe malfunction had embarrassed him. He placed a hand on the back of his pants, and said the rip occurred when he bent over behind the island. As he awkwardly shuffled around, Martin realized he was still holding a half-eaten chunk of miso fudge. With a proclamation that he needed to stop eating, he placed the fudge on a cutting board and walked off-camera.

Britain's domestic goddess Nigella Lawson knows how to rock a form-fitting dress that compliments her curves — most of the time. Like many celebrities who have spent decades in the spotlight, Lawson hasn't been flawless in her wardrobe choices. In 2014, she served as a panelist on ABC's "The Taste" alongside chefs Anthony Bourdain, Ludo Lefebvre, and Marcus Samuelsson. Lawson's dress for the tasting portion of the Season 3 premiere didn't present on camera the way she had intended.

Lawson likely had suspicions that the deep v-neck of her light blue dress plunged a little too low. Photo stills of her wearing it indicate the top is pinned shut — a quick sartorial hack used to adjust a garment's fit in the bust area. The multi-purposed powers of a safety pin were not enough to stave off a wardrobe malfunction for the lovely Lawson. The low-cut neckline revealed her bra as she sat on the panel.

The wardrobe debacle was only one misfortune for Lawson that episode. The team she was mentoring lost the challenge, forcing her to send one contestant home. When images of Lawson's dress on "The Taste" made the rounds online, she actually addressed it with a tweet that read: "One last thing: I had no idea quite so much décolletage was on display; mortified. On top of everything else." Fans in the comments section assured her she had nothing to be sorry for.

Back in 2009, when Paula Deen was still in the public's good graces, she entertained a crowd with her wardrobe hijinx. Deen took the stage for what was supposed to be a cooking demonstration at Food Network's South Beach Wine & Food Festival, but she seemed more interested in doing physical comedy. She held a glass of red wine and shouted gleefully to the spectators packed in the tent. Then, her pants fell down ... multiple times.

Deen parked her glass on a nearby kitchen island and clutched the sides of her white pants — which she was on the verge of losing. "My breeches are fallin' down!" Deen exclaimed. The crowd began to laugh, much to Deen's delight. "Look at 'em!" she continued, and showed off the back, her waistband drooping down from the weight of a microphone pack. Deen was totally unfazed about exposing the top half of her tan, full-coverage briefs (aka granny panties), generating hoots and hollers from the riled crowd.

With a mile-wide smile, Deen continued her performance. As she peacocked across the stage, hands at her hips, the pants slipped down again, this time to her thighs. Had Deen not caught the gravity-afflicted waistband the moment she did, her pants would've fallen to her ankles. Screeches and applause continued to erupt from the crowd and Deen loved every minute of it. Whatever she did after that, didn't matter at all.

To the busy working moms of the world, Chef Michelle Bernstein is all of us. As the longtime host of PBS local program "Check, Please! South Florida," Bernstein is a regular on camera. The weekly show highlights notable restaurants in the region as well as a cooking demonstration by the James Beard Award-winning chef. In 2014, as Bernstein stood in front of the camera to film a take in the studio kitchen, an out-of-the-ordinary wardrobe malfunction caused some confusion.

Off-screen, a production member's voice is heard asking Bernstein what is in the breast pockets of her button-down blouse, an apparent reference to the camera picking up some kind of protrusion. Bernstein assured them the pockets were empty, but began checking them just to be sure. Her pockets weren't the problem. As Bernstein patted down her blouse she recognized there was something off about her outfit. The mounted camera rolled on as she fished a child's pacifier from her bra.

She and the crew had a good laugh over it. "It wasn't in my pocket," Bernstein chuckled, "I was hiding it from my son and I stuck it in my bra." Head in hands, Bernstein continued laughing in disbelief, and admitted she was embarrassed, yet her lighthearted wardrobe glitch shed a glimmer of light on the more ordinary aspects of a star chef's lifestyle.

When chef James Martin cooks on U.K.'s ITV network, regular viewers understand that mild chaos is often just around the corner. True to form, Martin's baking tutorial got sort of weird on a September 2024 episode of "Saturday Morning." Martin and his "assistant," Michelin starred-chef Galton Blackiston, were hard at work on a classic strawberry sponge. A lot of things were happening at once, setting the stage for a wardrobe mishap on Martin's part.

Sugar caramelized on the stove and cake batter whipped away in the standing mixer, while Martin trimmed strawberry stalks, greased baking tins, and interviewed guest Jules Hudson about his furniture-making side hustle. Through it all, he also attempted to provide instruction to viewers on the finer points of making the sponge. When it came time to mix sifted flour into the batter, multi-tasking Martin had forgotten to remove the bracelets on his wrist before plunging it into the batter and mixing it furiously with his hand.

Martin said a pastry chef had taught him this hands-on method, perhaps forgetting that his other guest Judy Joo, was a chef herself. Joo pointed out that his bracelets were getting into the mixture, and a twinge of embarrassment came over Martin, who flat-out told Joo she wasn't supposed to bring that up on live TV. Blackiston gave some side eye, but despite Martin's less than sanitary practices, the sponge came out looking quite nice.

Food Network juggernaut Guy Fieri has filmed no less than 50 seasons of "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives," so he's seen a lot of places and eaten a lot of different foods. Fieri's show on the road began filming in 2006, but only once in all that time has the food star had a wardrobe malfunction. It happened in 2017, when Fieri visited Saigon Noodle and Grill in Orlando, Florida.

On Season 26, Episode 13, Fieri pulled into Orlando's Milk District to visit the authentic Vietnamese restaurant, yet his poor choice of t-shirt wound up getting blurred by Food Network once the episode aired. Fieri, a fierce champion of graphic tees, wore a shirt with a machine gun on the front, accompanied by the words "Kulinary Gangsta."

We aren't suggesting that the patrons of Saigon Noodle and grill were the ones to take umbrage against Fieri's less-than-P.C. t-shirt, however, we do feel that Fieri failed to read the room on a larger scale. For one, Vietnam has had a troubled history with military violence, so the idea of flaunting an assault rifle on one's shirt in that scenario lacks taste. Fieri has a well-worn image as being someone with a bold, if not unrefined style, yet his t-shirt flagrantly trivialized gun violence at a time when America's grappling with the issue was steadily going from bad to worse. At least Food Network certainly thought so.

"The Late Late Show with James Corden" was never short on antics, but Gordon Ramsay gave viewers a little extra during a treadmill battle with the British talk show host in 2019. Ramsay, known for his love of athletics, had previously tried (and failed) to convince Corden to run the Los Angeles Marathon with him. Corden used their exchange as inspiration for a game called "Tread Lightly." Ramsay, outfitted in a suit and running shoes, wasn't dressed for the occasion.

Corden also sported a suit and sneakers combo, but as the game's mastermind, he was at an advantage. On side-by-side treadmills, the pair answered questions about each other's areas of expertise — Corden was quizzed on cooking and Ramsay was quizzed on boy bands. Corden's treadmill was programmed to control the speed of Ramsay's treadmill and vice versa. When one player got a question wrong, the other upped the speed and/or incline of his treadmill.

Ramsay's boyband knowledge was very weak, so he ran a lot. He removed his suit jacket for the game (Corden, jogging briskly, kept his on), but his pants were working overtime. Toward the end of Tread Lightly, Ramsay shouted, "I ripped my f***ing pants!" and periodically clutched the back of his right pant leg thereafter. Viewers didn't see much of the damage, but once the treadmills stopped, Corden took a long look at the back of Ramsay's wardrobe failure.