When Jenny McCarthy attended the Oscars for the first time in 1997, she walked the red carpet confidently in a backward dress.
“I went to the Oscars once. They invited me when I was the ‘It Girl.’ They invite the ‘It Girl’ each year. I only was invited once, obviously,” McCarthy, 51, said during her Thursday, March 14, appearance on Live With Kelly and Mark. “I literally was working at a Polish grocery store a year and a half prior to me going to the Oscars, so I didn’t know much. They put me in a Valentino dress — I didn’t know I wore the dress backward.”
The floor-length number featured floral embroidery at the bodice that cascaded down the sheer skirt. The dress was equipped with the exact same design on the other side, making it easy to understand why McCarthy couldn’t distinguish where the front began.
She paired the piece with block heels and a silver evening bag. She wore her hair in a half-up, half-down ‘do that was finished with bouncy curls. For glam, she rocked thin brows (a big trend at the time) and lined lips.
McCarthy told Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos it was Valentino Garavani himself who informed McCarthy that she was wearing the look wrong after she thanked him for letting her “borrow” it. “He said, ‘You’re wearing it backwards.’ You know what, it doesn’t surprise me, I was smelling like Polish sausage still from working at the deli,” she joked.
Ripa, 53, assured McCarthy that she wore the dress exactly how she should have.
McCarthy previously opened up to Us Weekly about the moment, calling it “embarrassing.”
“I just remember dying a little bit,” McCarthy told Us in 2014. “Needless to say, I’ve never been dressed by Valentino again.”
