Gossip Girl’s Taylor Momsen takes her show’s raison d’etre seriously: It’s good to be talked about. At a concert in England this weekend, Momsen appeared onstage with her band, The Pretty Reckless, in a loose-fitting tank top and no bra. But the wannabe bad girl prepared for the intentional wardrobe malfunction by placing black electrical tape over her nipples. And good thing—Momsen is only 17.
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Widely credited with popularizing the nipple tape trend, Lady Gaga has tantalized her beloved paparazzi with criss-cross creations in white, black, and blue. But she has always downplayed her outrageous outfits: “A girl’s got to use what she’s given, and I’m not going to make a guy drool the way a Britney video does,” Gaga once admitted. “So I take it to extremes. I don’t say I dress sexily on stage—what I do is so extreme. It’s meant to make guys think: ‘I don’t know if this is sexy or just weird.’”
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Backstage at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, Pink had a little fun with a photographer when she opened up her costume just before she was about to perform her new single. When she flashed, Pink revealed shiny steel gray tape on her left breast. And so what, she's a rock star.
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Although she has cleaned up her image considerably by working with the U.N. and adopting several children, there was a time when Angelina Jolie was known as a wild child who wore vial of blood around her neck and kissed her own brother. In 2010, Star magazine published eight photos of Jolie taken in 1999 by a former friend. In the images, Jolie poses naked (except for tape on her nipples), smoking what is purported to be heroin. As her biographer Andrew Morton told the magazine: “The photographs are a startling reminder to Angelina of a period in her life I’m sure she wants to forget, a shady piece of her history that she’s kept hidden away, even from Brad.”
Actress Bai Ling is known for frequently going topless in public, but at a 2009 Halloween party she showed remarkable restraint by wearing gold star pasties with a costume that included gold Spandex pants, a white double-breasted sport coat (with no shirt), and a multi-colored neon wig. And who was she dressed as? Andy Warhol, of course. (At least that’s what she wrote on her bare belly and jacket.)
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The bright lights of photographers’ flashbulbs can often turn a seemingly demure outfit see-through—just ask John Kerry’s daughter, Alexandra. But some celebrities take precautions. In 2009, Rihanna taped two bright pink Xs across her breasts when she attended a Katy Perry concert in New York. Just a few weeks earlier, Rihanna tried a different geometrical approach, wearing star-shaped pasties to a party in Las Vegas.
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Snooki’s wild outfits (and wilder behavior) capture most of the headlines on Jersey Shore, but at MTV’s 2011 New Year’s Eve special, it was co-star Jenni “JWoww” Farley who was told to clean up her act. The 24-year-old JWoww wanted to wear loose a chainmail top with silver pasties on the show, but producers made her cover up with a white sport coat on camera. Considering the jacket was several sizes too small, she still JWoww-ed the juiceheads who were watching.
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Hayden Panettiere was ready for the X-ray glare of flashbulbs at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards. And while the nipple tape under her sheer Amanda Wakely dress may have preserved the 21-year-old actress’ modesty, it might have just been easier to strategically position herself behind her giant boyfriend at the time, boxer Wladimir Klitschko.
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For all her outrageous behavior over the years, when Amy Winehouse was photographed naked—covered by only a guitar and duct tape—for Britain's Easy Living magazine in 2008, she was doing it for a good cause: Winehouse and other stars posed for photographer Carol Djangoly to raise awareness about breast cancer among young women.
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It was the most famous wardrobe malfunction in history when Justin Timberlake peeled away Janet Jackson’s bustier during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2004. “Gonna have you naked by the end of this song,” J.T. sang to Miss Jackson. And while the episode caused an enormous controversy, including a failed lawsuit brought before the FCC, Jackson was not actually nude—her right breast was covered by a star-shaped pasty. But not everyone was offended: Jackson’s performance was the most replayed moment in TiVo history and caused an estimated 35,000 new subscribers to sign up for the service.
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