A bad TV kiss can get people into a heap of trouble — whether it's the wrong people, the wrong place, the wrong time... or something so much worse.
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00:00A bad TV kiss can get people into a heap of trouble, whether it's the wrong people, the
00:05wrong place, the wrong time, or something so much worse.
00:10One of the famous romantic scenes in the original Star Trek series took place in the Season
00:153 episode, Plato's Stepchildren, which originally aired in 1968. Notably, this episode features
00:21the first kiss between William Shatner's James T. Kirk and Nichelle Nichols' Uhura. But besides
00:26being a triumphant moment for fans of the two characters, it was deemed controversial
00:30at the time for being widely regarded as the first interracial kiss to be broadcast on
00:35television.
00:36That said, this perception wasn't quite right. Interracial romances had been depicted on
00:40TV before, such as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz on I Love Lucy. Much of the controversy likely
00:46stemmed from the fact that Plato's Stepchildren aired only one year after Loving vs. Virginia,
00:52a Supreme Court case that upheld interracial marriage under the Constitution. Executives
00:56at NBC were reportedly worried that the moment would offend some American audiences, so they
01:01forced the producers to shoot an alternative version, in which Kirk doesn't kiss Uhura,
01:06as well as another where the kiss occurs off-screen. Shatner and Nichols, who wanted the authentic
01:11moment to air on TV, made sure that the other takes were unusable, with Shatner crossing
01:16his eyes in one and flubbing his lines in another, while the Kirk-Uhura kiss ended up
01:21making TV history. The BBC refused to re-air the episode until the 1990s, insisting that
01:27it was due to the episode's villains rather than the interracial kiss.
01:32It's perhaps no surprise that a fantasy show like Once Upon a Time would inspire some fairy
01:36tale love stories of its own. At least, that's what seemed to happen between Jennifer Goodwin
01:41and Josh Dallas, who played Snow White and Prince Charming on the show. The only problem?
01:46At the time they began filming, Dallas was married to Lara Pulver, while Goodwin was
01:50engaged to Joey Kern. It seems like their character's on-screen love affair may have
01:54inspired one off-screen. On Live with Kelly and Ryan, Dallas was asked if they had to
01:59resist falling in love on set.
02:01No, we didn't fight.
02:02You didn't fight?
02:03We went straight for it.
02:04Hollywood.
02:05Straight for it.
02:06The couple went public with their romance only a few months after Dallas' divorce, which
02:09suggests these co-stars must have seriously enjoyed kissing each other as Snow White and
02:14Prince Charming. And while there's no confirmation that Goodwin and Dallas' on-screen smooching
02:18started in bad faith, it's safe to say that the end of both Goodwin's engagement and Dallas'
02:23marriage may be connected. The pair married in 2014 and now share two children.
02:29Little House on the Prairie was one of the most iconic television shows of the 1970s,
02:34but the cast didn't always have an easy time making it. This was particularly true for
02:38Melissa Gilbert, who broke out on the show playing Laura Ingalls, the daughter of Charles
02:42Ingalls. At 15 years old, Gilbert had her first kiss, both on-screen and in real life,
02:47in the episode, Sweet 16, though some onset turmoil nearly prevented it from happening.
02:53The trouble came from Gilbert's mother, who was upset that Gilbert's first kiss at 15
02:57was with her TV husband, played by the 23-year-old Dean Butler. Years later, Gilbert herself
03:02revealed, she was also uncomfortable with the kiss, writing in her memoir,
03:06"...today that eight-year difference between us is a tiny gap, but 45 years ago it was
03:10the Grand Canyon."
03:11Nevertheless, Butler has defended the kiss, saying it was an important moment for the
03:17Not everyone who watched Little House on the Prairie agreed, though. The episode received
03:20complaints from viewers who felt that a relationship between a teenager and an adult man was inappropriate
03:26for television.
03:28It's always difficult to navigate making a TV show that has kissing scenes take place
03:31between minors. In the case of Stranger Things, it was even more problematic, as one of those
03:36kisses wasn't actually planned. The second season finale, The Gate, ends with the annual
03:41snowball at the teen's school, in which Mike and Eleven dance and smooch together. However,
03:46the scene also features the first kiss for Max and Lucas, a kiss that wasn't supposed
03:50to happen when the actors showed up on set.
03:53As Sadie Sink revealed in the Beyond Stranger Things aftershow on Netflix, she was told
03:57by co-creator Ross Duffer that she was going to have to kiss Max McLaughlin, which understandably
04:02caused her to freak out.
04:03"...I was just joking. And you just went, you were so freaked out that I was like, well,
04:07I gotta make her do it now."
04:09This admission resulted in some backlash from fans online, who suggested that it was
04:13highly inappropriate for the Duffer brothers to coax the two child actors into kissing
04:17on camera when they weren't prepared for it. Worse yet, this was McLaughlin's first kiss.
04:21At the very least, Sink seemed to have a good attitude looking back at it.
04:26Rhea Perlman's portrayal of Carla in NBC's iconic sitcom Cheers won her four Emmys for
04:31Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, but it also won her some real-life
04:36One of those people is comedian Jay Thomas, who was cast on Cheers in a guest-starring
04:40capacity as Eddie, Carla's romantic interest and eventual husband. However, sparks did
04:45not fly between Thomas and Perlman on set, as Thomas would soon reveal.
04:49On his radio show, Thomas was asked by a caller what the set of Cheers was like, to which
04:53the comedian replied,
04:54"...It's brutal. I have to kiss Rhea Perlman."
04:57The insult was taken seriously by the show's producers, who subsequently fired the actor.
05:02Rather than simply not have Eddie appear on screen anymore, Thomas' character was killed
05:06off of the show in a Zamboni accident. Years later, Thomas insisted that his comment had
05:10been directed toward Perlman's character, Carla, who was notably unpleasant. Perlman,
05:15meanwhile, claimed Thomas was written off because she didn't want Carla to become excluded
05:19from the show's main cast. Either way, not having the two on set together seemed to be
05:23best for everyone.
05:26It's not unheard of for actors to spontaneously kiss their scene partner in the middle of
05:30a take. But this opens up a whole world of problems when the actor also happens to be
05:34involved in running what they're acting on. This was the mistake made by Mindy Kaling
05:38on her Fox show, The Mindy Project, in which her character's dating life often brought
05:42in handsome guest stars that caused Kaling to briefly lose her senses.
05:46One such guest star was Leigh Pace, who appeared in the Season 3 episode, San Francisco Bay,
05:51as Alex, a former college fling whom Mindy's character regrets not staying with. Kaling
05:55herself admitted on Conan that, in one scene, she improvised a kiss with Pace, but not everyone
06:01on set thought it was a good idea. Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen, both writer-producers on
06:06the show, told her she had potentially done something very bad.
06:09"'Hey man, what are you doing? You could be sued for that!' And I got very scared, and
06:15then I said, um, tell anyone and you're fired."
06:18Years later, a resurfaced clip of the interview circled the web, prompting many former fans
06:22to criticize her for openly admitting to, and making light of, what would today be deemed
06:27sexual harassment.
06:29The ABC sitcom Roseanne broke new ground for TV audiences. In the Season 6 episode, Don't
06:35Ask, Don't Tell, which aired in 1994, Roseanne goes to a gay bar in order to prove she's
06:40cool. Soon, she attracts the attention of Sharon, who is played by Mariel Hemingway.
06:44When Sharon unexpectedly kisses Roseanne, however, the characters find themselves in
06:48trouble, which is exactly what happened to the real-life showrunners, too.
06:52Upon learning of the kiss, ABC executives threatened to pull the episode from their
06:56schedule. Nevertheless, thanks to Barr's threat to move Roseanne to another network and producer
07:01Tom Arnold spilling the beans about the controversy prior to airing, Don't Ask, Don't Tell aired
07:05in its original form, albeit with a warning label and the loss of a few sponsors.
07:10The episode was praised by many for tackling the rampant issue of homophobia, but the mixed-to-angry
07:16reactions from conservatives actually made it harder for future shows to portray same-sex
07:21Nevertheless, Roseanne poked fun at the controversy in later episodes, while Hemingway made reference
07:26to it in her 1995 Saturday Night Live monologue by kissing several of the show's female cast
07:31members backstage.
07:33A number of dark secrets surrounding Nickelodeon have come to light in recent years, from abusive
07:38producers on many of their iconic sitcoms to situations that endangered the lives of
07:42child actors. This poor work environment carried over to the Naked Brothers band, which starred
07:48Nat and Alex Wolff, and was created by their mother, Polly Draper.
07:51To shape out the titular rock band, a lineup of child actor-musicians was formed, one of
07:56which was played by Allie D'Amico. After watching a documentary that exposed the shocking behind-the-scenes
08:01behavior at Nickelodeon, D'Amico took to TikTok to claim she had been forced to kiss a 30-year-old
08:06adult on the show. She was 14 or 15 years old at the time, she said.
08:11To make matters worse, said adult, Jake Herzog, wasn't a professional actor. He was a backup
08:15musician for the band, who D'Amico alleged had constantly begged to be written into
08:19the show. On a set riddled with nepotism, it was tough for D'Amico to stand her ground
08:24as one of the few external hires. D'Amico alleged that she and her mother were against
08:29the kiss scene, but were threatened with being fired if she didn't go through with it. In
08:33another TikTok video, D'Amico recalled that a female producer, after finding out that
08:37she hadn't had her first kiss, grabbed her and kissed her.
08:40And then she said, there, your first kiss is over. You've had your first kiss, and now
08:44go film."
08:46Saturday Night Live has had its fair share of famous and infamous kisses, but none caused
08:51quite as much of a ruckus as that shared between Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian in 2021.
08:57Kardashian was hosting the show that night, and one sketch, based on Aladdin, saw her
09:00locking lips with Davidson. Kardashian later admitted that her interest felt piqued from
09:05it enough to pursue Davidson romantically.
09:08There was one person who wasn't too happy about this, however. Throughout the duration
09:11of Kardashian and Davidson's yearlong romance, Kanye West publicly criticized the two's relationship,
09:17accusing Kardashian of inviting him to the SNL performance to watch her kiss Davidson
09:21as a manipulation tactic. He even threatened physical harm against Davidson, via social
09:26media posts and song lyrics. Still, at least West didn't have to see the moment live. Kardashian
09:32later alleged that he had walked out of the SNL taping after she joked about him in her
09:36monologue.
09:38Sometimes the most troublesome on-screen kisses aren't the ones that are unscripted, but the
09:42ones that happen to real people. The 75th Academy Awards, which aired on ABC in 2003,
09:48is a notable example of this, as it was the year Adrian Brody won Best Actor for The Pianist.
09:53In one of the more memorable moments from the night, Brody forcibly kissed presenter
09:57Halle Berry before accepting his award. Understandably, many viewers have long held mixed feelings
10:02about this moment. In a series of reactions from the Chicago Tribune, one reader wrote,
10:07When I watched the event, it made me extremely uncomfortable, the same way I'd feel if I
10:11saw any other total stranger force a kiss on someone else. What he did goes beyond the
10:15realm of polite or impolite. It was abusive."
10:18To make matters worse, it seems Brody and Berry have different recollections of the
10:22moment itself. Brody cited the kiss as memorable enough to make it feel as if time slowed down,
10:27while Berry expressed a much different reaction on Watch What Happens Live.
10:31I was like, what the f----- is happening right now? That is what was going through my mind."
10:41If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available.
10:45Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's national helpline
10:50at 1-800-656-HOPE, 4673.