Celebrity Halloween Costumes 2022: So Much Money, So Little Imagination

Stars went as themselves, as other hot people, or as characters with extremely elaborate costumes that require nothing but deep pockets to pull off.

By Lauren Tousignant | October 31, 2022 | 5:25pm

Celebrities

Monday was Halloween, which means we just wrapped up four days of celebs flaunting their deep pockets by choosing over-the-top costumes that could only be executed by people with a lot of money and not a lot of imagination.

They trotted out their costumes all over Los Angeles and our Instagram feeds. George Clooney’s tequila threw a huge Halloween party on Friday night, though he did not appear to be there—but Paris Hilton, Leslie Mann and Judd Apatow, and Chrishell Stause were. Kim Kardashian showed up as X-Men’s Mystique to Tracee Ellis Ross’s 50th birthday party—which was not a costume party. A bunch of other celebrities appeared to dress up simply to conduct bizarrely intricate photoshoots in the privacy of their own homes. And, after a two-year covid hiatus, Heidi Klum threw her infamous Halloween party Monday night dressed as a goddamn worm.

Personally, I think celebs should use Halloween to get crafty and weird like the rest of us. How would they approach costumes if they had a college student’s budget, a 60-hour work week plus commuting, or a cosmetics bag stocked only with drugstore basics?

We’ve rounded up some of their most eye-popping costumes—many of which just reminded us that money can buy a lot, but it can’t buy creativity.

Heidi Klum as a worm

I guess when you’ve previously dressed up as an ape, an inside out body, a glittery purple robot, and a gruesome, mid-autopsy alien, there’s nowhere else to draw inspiration from except from inside the Earth.

Kendall Jenner as a cucumber

We always appreciate a self-aware celeb. This is much better than her Sexy Jessie from Toy Story costume—yet, I’m still underwhelmed.

Julia Fox as someone wearing clothes

This is the most amount of fabric Fox has ever been photographed in. Very spooky!

Donald Faison and his daughter as Murray Duval and Dionne Davenport

Faison reprised his role as Murray Duval from Clueless while his 7-year-old daughter dressed up as Dionne Davenport. We’re totally buggin’!

Elon Musk ugh

The “Chief Twit” appears to be wearing a $7,500 costume, according to Just Jared, that’s called “The Devil’s Champion” from Abracadabra NYC. I really fucking hate it here.

More Kylie Jenner

If you keep scrolling you’ll see Kylie’s costumes from Friday and Saturday night. But on Monday, she posted a bunch of Instagrams as a...alien warrior savior thing? The most informative caption simply said, “PLANET KYLIE.” I don’t know what’s happening.

Cardi B as Marge Simpson

It’s no Lizzo, but Cardi B dusting her Grammy as Marge Simpson is very “Baby how you feelin’? Feeling good as hell!”

Travis Barker and Kourntey Kardashian Barker as Chucky and Tiffany Valentine

I believe that Travis Barker has made Kourtney Kardashian infinitely more interesting so this is cute. Plus this is way more of a wedding dress than the dress Kourntey actually wore when she married Barker for a third time in Italy in May. Happy for them!

Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly as Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee

Two hot famous people dressing as two other hot famous people? Groundbreaking. To attempt to be even more edgy, MGK also fake (maybe?) snorted cocaine off Fox’s breast as Lee famously did with Pam. Sounds like they had fun, at least.

Addison Rae as Lady Gaga

In a world without TikTok, Addison Rae would probably be a junior in college right now, and I do believe she could have thrown together this costume on a college student’s budget. Nine “rah, rah-ah-ah-ah”s out of 10.

Florence Pugh as herself in Midsommar

Is this imaginative? No. Is it creative? No. Is it Florence Pugh being silly, practical, and economical? Yes. I’m a fan.

Kim Kardashian as Mystique

Sure, Kim looks just like Jennifer Lawrence’s character in X-Men. What I want to know is: What her costume would look like if she didn’t have the resources to (I’m guessing) hire the franchise’s actual makeup artist and costume director to recreate this look for her?

Lizzo as Marge Simpson

Lizzo is perfect and everything she does is perfect. No mean notes.

Frankie Jonas and his girlfriend as Joe Jonas and Taylor Swift

The bonus Jonas—who never got to be in the band—and his girlfriend, Anna Olson, had the best Halloween costume of the weekend, in my opinion: 2009 Joe Jonas and Taylor Swift, purity rings included. Incredible.

Janelle Monae as Diva Plavalaguna from The Fifth Element:

Over-the-top, intricate, expensive, elaborate etc. etc. A lot of blue bodysuits happening this year.

The Gerber-Crawford family

Rande, Kaia, Presley, and Cindy coordinated their night out but not their costumes. Kaia also dressed up as Neo from The Matrix in 2018, so I guess she really fucking loves that movie!

Kylie Jenner as the Bride of Frankenstein

Unclear if Kylie Jenner is celebrating Halloween or soft-launching a new grey-scale lip kit. Either way, it was clearly very important to her to build out a dungeon in her basement so she could take these pictures.

Kylie Jenner (again) as Elvira

Like any self-respecting, “self-made” billionaire, Jenner couldn’t do just one costume: She was Frankenstein’s bride on Friday, Elvira on Saturday, seemingly nothing on Sunday, and on Monday posted an Instagram of her in a red leather leotard with the caption “brb went to fight aliens in space.” I really don’t think Kylie left her compound once this weekend.

Kerry Washington as Lionel Richie

This goes against my rule about being creative and imaginative for Halloween, but every rule has an exception. It’s simple and hilarious. Great work.

Rebel Wilson and friends as Barbie Dolls

I originally thought these Barbie boxes were handmade with cardboard, paint, and creativity but they weren’t. Clearly purchased. Still, they look great, and points for being topical.

Camille Kostek and Rob Gronkowski as Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken

Are Camille Kostek and Margot Robbie friends? Or maybe Rob Gronkowski and Ryan Gosling are? Someone definitely got the actual costumes from the Barbie set. I had to do a double take.

Ariana Grande and Elizabeth Gillies as Jennifer Coolidge and Jane Lynch in Best in Show

This was brilliant, especially if you’ve seen Ariana’s spot-on impression of Jennifer Coolidge. Zero notes.

Lili Reinhart, Madelaine Petsch, and Camila Mendes as the Hocus Pocus cast

These costumes were probably like $500 to rent, but points for nostalgia and execution.

Eugene Lee Yang (from The Try Guys) as both Vecna and Eddie from Stranger Things

One of The Try Guys tried really hard this Halloween. But Eugene’s had a stressful few months, so whatever makes him happy.

Keke Palmer as X-Men’s Rogue

Have the celebs always been setting up these insane photoshoots? I don’t remember such elaborate productions populating my social media feeds in years past.

Kendall Jenner

Of course Kendall Jenner would dress up as sexy Jessie from Toy Story.

Billie Eilish and Jesse Rutherford as an old man and a baby

This was an attempt to mock Eilish fans’ recent meltdown of the couple’s 11-year age gap. Always good to be self-aware, I guess.

Paris Hilton as Sailor Moon

I love the idea of Paris dressing up as a character that battles a bunch of evil forces—especially with all the advocacy work she’s been doing to help close and reform “youth treatment centers,” like Utah’s Provo Canyon School. But this just kind of looks like a bad dance recital costume. In this case, Paris maybe could have maybe spent more money.

Hailey Bieber as a model from the Yves Saint Laurent 1999 runway show

Ok, this feels very random, but I do appreciate the weird specificity of being inspired by Laetitia Casta’s look from a decades-old haute couture show. I mean, it’s not that creative to just be hot, but this at least feels like she ran to Michaels craft store—even though she probably paid someone six figures to figure it out for her.

Latto as the Corpse Bride

Again, was there some giant memo that went out to all the celebs that they have to figure out a background if they want to post their costume on Instagram? I also think this might be edited, which is cheating.

Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly, again as themselves?

I truly do not know what they’re supposed to be. They’ve already told us they drank each other’s blood—is this supposed to be shocking? This seems like something they’d wear to run to CVS for gum and band-aids.