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CNN
—
Heidi Klum phone home.
The most hotly anticipated costume of the spooky season is here — and the “Queen of Halloween” didn’t disappoint.
Continuing her tradition of wearing wildly elaborate outfits to her own star-studded annual bash, Klum arrived at this year’s party dressed as E.T.
The 51-year-old model made a dramatic entrance at New York’s Hard Rock Hotel, her face peeking out from the extraterrestrial’s neck beneath an animatronic head that blinked and moved its mouth. With the costume’s feet at knee-level, an elevated stage (and smoke machine) helped give the appearance that Klum was walking around on E.T.’s characteristically stumpy legs.
The former Victoria’s Secret Angel completed the look with an outsized wig, dress and lipstick — a nod to when Drew Barrymore’s character, Gertie, dresses the alien up in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 movie “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.”
Klum’s husband, Tom Kaulitz, also attended the party as E.T., with his wig-less costume completing a his-and-hers of sorts (though Spielberg has long maintained that the character is neither male nor female).
Speaking to the New York Times ahead of the event, Klum said her glowing fingertips and motorized headpiece, which weighed around five pounds, were controlled remotely by a member of her team. She also revealed plans to wear an adult diaper, due to the difficulty of removing the costume during the party, saying: “Maybe I never need to use (it) but at least that way I don’t have to think about it”.
Klum had kept fans guessing until the last minute, sharing close-ups of the costume on social media and live-streaming her preparations (albeit with her outfit hidden from view) via Amazon Live earlier on Thursday.
The model was joined on the pre-party program by longtime collaborator Mike Marino, the Hollywood prosthetic designer behind several of her most complex Halloween costumes. Marino called this year’s design “probably the most complicated that we’ve ever done.”
“Her whole face and body are glued on,” he said. “And it takes, really, months to build and design.”
Klum said that Marino had, at first, considered the costume too complex. “When I asked Mike if he could do this costume for me, his initial answer was ‘no’,” she said on Amazon Live, recalling that she “begged and begged” him to change his mind.
The German model held the first of her annual October 31 events in in 2000, seven years after she moved to the US and “fell in love” with Halloween. “All that was missing was a fantastic party,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2018.
The bash has since become one of Halloween’s most talked-about parties, thanks, in part, to Klum’s imaginative costumes. Recent years have seen her arrive as a robot, a peacock, a werewolf, Princess Fiona from “Shrek” and, perhaps most famously, a giant earthworm in 2022.
At this year’s event, The Roots’ drummer Questlove came as a mad hatter, model Haley Kalil dressed as Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride,” and “The Real Housewives of New York” star Bethenny Frankel arrived as Wonder Woman.
Influencer Zach Justice, dressed as KFC’s Colonel Sanders, meanwhile arrived with an oversized egg that he pulled open to reveal “America’s Got Talent” contortionist Sofie Dossi, who was folded up inside in a chicken costume.
Klum’s costume may have won the award for most elaborate, but she wasn’t this year’s only celebrity extraterrestrial. In an apparent coincidence, Janelle Monae posted her own E.T. costume to social media a day earlier. The actor and musician collaborated with special effects artists to produce the outfit, which also featured a glowing fingertip, for an appearance on “The Jennifer Hudson Show.”