This past week all the world watched as Jennifer Lopez revealed about 0.05 mm of her right nipple, leading to a relatively minor “wardrobe malfunction” uproar.

It got us wondering about more famous incidents of nudity. More than a few people have made scandal, and sometimes entire careers, out of publicly displaying themselves. For Listed this week, we gathered some of the most memorable nude stories. 

9. George William Crump

Though streaking reached peak popularity in the 1970s, early 19th-century college student George William Crump was the first man arrested for running around with his shame flapping in the wind. Officially, he “Stripped naked in the public street in a clear moonlight night between the hours of 8 & 9," creating the uncommon lunar phenomenon of two full moons. 

Though Crump was suspended from Virginia’s Washington University he later became a congressman, elected with Washington’s tamest penis-related criminal record.

However, he was far from the first actual public nudist ...

8. Archimedes

Greek physician Archimedes brought forth numerous principles that would help govern centuries of invention and mechanical progress. He observed much about our physical world that now seems obvious, including his illustration of water density and displacement.

The story goes that Archimedes, tasked with figuring out if King Heiro’s new crown was indeed pure gold or contained cheaper silver, stepped into his bath and noted the displaced water volume was equal to his own mass. Realizing the experiment was perfect for determining the authenticity of the crown’s gold density, he became excited enough to run out of the house and into the streets completely naked, shouting “Eureka!” (“I found it!”) to anyone who had yet to flee in terror.

7. The Collected Subjects of Spencer Tunick

Spencer Tunick is the world’s foremost photographer of nude people. He holds this unusual distinction by gathering large, sagging masses of humanity into unwieldy groups and setting them onto some daily activity that normally doesn’t involve loose genitalia, like going shopping, watching sporting events and visiting wine country. “Don’t worry, we brought our own grapes!”

Tunick’s nude crews have reached upwards of 18,000 people, though it’s possible a small percentage were independent nudists sucked into the crowd’s orbit.

6. Audrey Munson

The human boob has been a subject of film scholarship since the medium was invented, with nude photography itself being an open secret for decades previous.

The first officially-released, mass-marketed titty thriller was Inspiration (1915), a feature about a poor girl taken in as a sculptor’s model. On the pretense that her character was inspiring art, not sexual thought, actress Audrey Munson appeared fully nude and reaped about $100 million in box office returns.

5. Jim Morrison

When Jim Morrison wrote “I am the lizard king” on the sleeve of The Doors’ Waiting for the Sun, he might have been the first rock star to speak from the perspective of their own dick. That dick made several appearances at Doors concerts in their short career, though to what capacity is often disputed.

Morrison’s first arrest for indecent exposure actually sprung from a backstage incident. Before a concert in New Haven, Connecticut in 1967, Morrison and a female fan were fornicating in a dressing room shower stall when police arrived and attempted to escort them out.

Two years later Morrison was arrested again after a wild, raucous concert in Miami purportedly climaxed with a full-on whip-out of his package. Surviving band members have denied, against the betterment of their legacy, that this career-defining moment ever happened. If only the same were true of this disaster.

4. Red Buttons

Who was the first person to appear nude on television? PBS was long known to air full-frontal nudity in its natural history documentary programming, and various network affiliates aired uncensored breasts in Hollywood movies for years without much uproar.

But long before Janet Jackson gave the world a sight it surely wasn’t asking for, comedian Red Buttons gave viewers an even greater disturbance. The story goes that during a live airing of The Milton Berle Show in the mid-‘50s, a gag intended to strip Buttons down to his underwear accidently exposed his entire shriveled, ginger manhood.

As far as we can tell this is an urban legend, often reported as fact but not found in official biographies (because the world needs more than one Red Buttons biography.) If you’ve got a source either way, let us know!

3./2. John Lennon and Yoko Ono 



John Lennon’s solo career has earned almost as much critical praise and analysis as his work with The Beatles. That might have something to do with the fact that the godawful Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins was recalled from stores, which might have had everything to do with its album cover.

Two Virgins is essentially the White Album tape-loop experiment “Revolution 9” stretched to album length, a formless, dated mess that was bound to repel anyone who somehow made it past the sight of Lennon’s Pink Hammer. Re-releases have wrapped the cover in brown paper, which somehow makes it seem even grosser.

1. Lady Godiva  



Most of you have heard of Lady Godiva; she is the historical embodiment of indecent exposure. Supposedly the 11th-century noblewoman rode through the town of Coventry on horseback completely naked, giving locals the most interesting sight anyone had seen in a good 300 years.

Few know why Godiva did such an awesome thing: supposedly she lost a bet with her husband, the town’s landowner, who said she would not have the nerve to strip naked to support relief of the people’s tax burden. Seems like a strange bet to make with your hot wife, but people were much stupider back then.