Katy Perry’s top popped off during American Idol’s live Monday night broadcast, leading to a very near wardrobe malfunction for the chart-topping singer.
Perry’s unfortunate gaff happened just as Roman Collins was about to take the stage to sing his version of James Brown’s “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” She was wearing a silver space-age-looking top that was strapped to her back with thin wiring.
“I need my top to stay on!” Perry bellows good-naturedly in a behind-the-scenes clip posted to her Instagram, showing crew members and co-host Luke Bryan working tirelessly to get her top back on.
As Perry hefts a pair of pliers from the table in front of her, she says directly to camera, “If it’s not fixed, this show is gonna get more than it wanted.”
Bryan then briefly stepped in to try his hand at rearranging the straps with a pair of manicuring scissors, but he soon tapped out and left the crew to continue their struggle to no avail.
“Ratings!” Perry’s second co-host, Lionel Richie, exclaimed as she lowered her chair below the judge’s table. “Here we come ratings,” he repeated.
“This is a family show!” Perry protested as she used a large pillow to hide her chest.
After Collins finished his performance, Perry cracked to him, “The song broke my top off. I guess it is a woman’s world.”
After the show, Bryan and Richie gave conflicting accounts of the incident to Entertainment Tonight. “Tonight, her top flies off, almost flies off,” Bryan recalled of the moment he decided to try and help Perry. “At this point in the game, I’m like, ‘What do you need? What do you need? You need a pair of pliers? You need a towel? A bathrobe? What do you need?'”
But according to Richie, the wardrobe malfunction was squarely Bryan’s fault. “Luke knocked the top off, I’ll tell you all the truth,” Richie laughed. “And then Luke spent the rest of the time going, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’ But he was definitely apologetic and then he tried to put it back together and that looked worse than the whole thing.”
Perry seemed to agree with Richie, as she lightly ribbed Bryan. “Yeah, he’s always setting me up,” Perry said of Bryan, giggling. “It wasn’t really a malfunction. It was just a moment for live television,” she explained.
Perry concluded: “Every season it seems I rip my pants…I think it’s the physical comedy, the physical expression side of me that just wants to burst at the seams.”
At least Perry has found a way to stay memorable for Idol viewers even after her upcoming retirement from the show.
American Idol airs Sunday and Monday nights at 8 p.m. on ABC.
