People’s Choice Awards 2022: Reality Stars Invade the Purple Carpet

Leave it to the 48th People's Choice Awards—held in a literal airport hanger—to remind you just how vast pop culture really is.

By Caitlin Cruz | December 7, 2022 | 1:25am

Entertainment

**Kel Mitchell & Kenan Thompson, Shania Twain, and Laverne Cox.** Photo: Getty Images (Getty Images)

Live from a Santa Monica airport hanger, the stars turned out on Tuesday for the 48th People’s Choice Awards—a show that gives us yet another option to register our opinions, as if that’s not what the entire internet is all day, every day. Our host for the evening was Kenan Thompson, whose campaign to remind us that he’s not just Saturday Night Live’s most reliable man is ongoing.

Top Gun: Maverick, Bullet Train, and Jordan Peele’s bizarre thriller Nope, went into the night with the most movie nominations, and the absolutely delightful Abbott Elementary and Netflix blockbuster Stranger Things led the pack for TV. Bad Bunny and Harry Styles dominated the music nominations, and Styles even managed to nab an acting nomination for his turn as an accent-challenged misogynist in Don’t Worry Darling.

The night started with dozens of hopeful People’s Choices making their way down the purple carpet. Reality TV stars donned ill-fitting, fast-fashion-looking outfits; the casts of many a beloved TV show strutted their stuff; and Shania Twain looked absolutely bonkers (in a GREAT way). Let’s take a gander at what the celebs trotted out for this night of pop culture democracy.

Laverne Cox

I love the retro/Pucci-esque fabric paired with a Victorian-type bustle. I also love the green. The curtain bangs are killer. 10 monsteras/10 monsteras.

Shania Twain

THIS is the unhinged shit I want to see on ~~D-list~~ purple carpets!! There’s a cape and hood! There’s a throwback to her classic album Come On Over! There’s the weirdest full glove/full sleeve! There are the obvious falsies! The bad pink hair?? I absolutely love Shania Twain, even though she wanted to vote for Donald Trump (shhh).

Ryan Reynolds

The three-piece suit must be so warm in that airport hanger in Santa Monica, but it’s a classic Thom Browne look. And we should salute nailing a classic when it happens.

Olivia Wilde

Here at Jezebel, we heartily support freeing the nipple, so we applaud this look. We’d also like to congratulate Olivia Wilde, whose movie, Don’t Worry Darling, won one of the night’s first awards, despite (or perhaps, because of) the months of controversy surrounding it.

Erika Jayne

Erika Jayne’s ability to ignore the mounting legal scandals surrounding her life and just show up would be admirable if the crimes surrounding her soon-to-be ex-husband weren’t horrid. This outfit looks like a person trying to understand Gen Z fashion, but can’t fully embrace the aesthetic—what’s up with that giant weird bangle? The dress itself is so boring; Bella Thorne did this in a hotter, edgier way more than six months ago!

Photo: Chris Polk/E! Entertainment/NBC (Getty Images)

I love that we’re bringing back nightgown inspiration for the red carpet. Despite the dangerously deep neckline, this looks like a lot of fun to wear. The bangles in place of fabric cuffs? Love it. But black, while classic, does feel a bit dated on the purple carpet, no matter how much fun the Real Housewife is having.

Dwyane Wade

Dwyane Wade showed up coordinating with the purple carpet, which lesser critics would poo-poo as too on the nose. This particular jacket is part of the last show the late Virgil Abloh worked on before his death in 2021, which I think is so great.

Kenan Thompson

Tonight’s host looked sharp in a deep velvet, with cute (and proportional!) bowtie. Men are really leaning into velvet on the red carpet these days, so I won’t call this revolutionary, but Thompson’s twist on color is enough for me to like it.

GAYLE

Into every generation a gothy musician is born. I am positive I can find this look in the Getty archive if I dig back to 1994. I wish she had some differentiation between the shoes and thigh highs, but that’s a nitpick. Yay gothy GAYLE!

James Charles

This look is giving me a reaction, which makes it stand out among its competitors. However, is the reaction I’m having a positive one? Err, maybe I should keep that to myself.

Emma Hernan

No girlie on Selling Sunset has ever met a red—I mean purple—carpet they didn’t like. Realtor/bad empanada entrepreneur Emma Hernan showed up in this forgettable beaded number. Nude, beige and more beige, I’ve never seen such a conventionally attractive woman fade into nothing.

Lexi Rivera and Brent Rivera

It’s cool that these TikTok/YouTubers got to go to prom! It just sucks that their dates had to be their sibling, but not every one can meet someone in time.

Heidi Klum

Sorry, but is this not made from the same curtains Maria pulled off the windows to sew matching clothes for the Von Trapp children??? It truly looks like she just threw together the scraps that someone found while cleaning out a room in the Von Trapp mansion that hadn’t been touched since the early ’40s. Even though this outfit reminds me of the blessed Julie Andrews, it cannot compete with Heidi’s Halloween costume. (Also, I must know how she keeps her boots up. Is it a skinny-thigh thing? Is it lots of fashion tape?)

Tarek El Moussa and Heather Rae El Moussa

I’ve come around to people just having their pregnancy belly hanging out on red carpets. Unfortunately for Heather (a Selling Sunset cast member who loves every camera ever pointed her way), I have to downgrade this look because of Tarek. His outfit is boring and he is boring! Justice for Heather’s outfit!

Ellen Pompeo

I...don’t get Ellen Pompeo’s outfit here. I do get wanting to vent your arms when you’re about to be in a very crowded airport hanger. And I love a jumpsuit. But this just seems like something we could buy at Forever 21 a decade ago???

Grey’s Anatomy Cast

I love Grey’s Anatomy so much. Why did they insist on posing together?! They look like a bride (Pompeo in this scenario) trusted her varying degrees of stylish friends to all be bridesmaids in “red.” Oh, and one of the friend’s husbands joined in the shot even though he’s not on theme?? This elaborate scenario I’ve constructed in my head is all to say that these outfits would photograph fine alone.

Wells Adams and Sarah Hyland

Your hottest friends are finally married, but they still have no sartorial personalities.

Ana Gasteyer

Ana Gasteyer chose the right color and the wrong cut for this dress. I hate the sleeves and how they build a trapezoid on her chest. The rest of the dress is well tailored (and we love a sequin moment), so it sucks that the top of the dress is such a dud.

Carmen Electra

Carmen Electra looks like she wanted Julia Fox’s signature eye look, but her make-up artist talked her into intense smoky eye instead. The outfit is fine! It looks like a Reformation bias-cut dress was cut up, but it looks fine!

Chrishell Stause

Did the Selling Sunset blondies make a blood pact to wear the most bland glittery dresses possible?? My Kentucky show pony—who is single-handedly carrying Selling Sunset into its next season—looks so sad 🙁

Michaela Jaé Rodriguez

This reminds me a dress I wore to junior prom! Not in a bad way—just in a nostalgic, kind of dated way? Michaela Jaé Rodriguez is just so beautiful that I’m willing to give these weird sleeves a pass.

Niecy Nash and Jessica Betts

*takes a big deep breath* I LOVE GAAAAAAYYYYYYY PEOPLE

I really appreciate that the couple’s outfits provide an excellent color story when seen next to each other, but still look excellent separate. Plus, both are so committed to their own fashion vision.

Housewives Sutton Stracke, Crystal Kung Minkoff and Dorit Kemsley

You can tell Sutton is old money, while Crystal wants to have fun! Dorit...please send your gloves back to Medieval Times where they belong. A black slip dress with no-makeup makeup is in! You don’t need to complicate it!

Carrie Underwood

I personally love a menswear look on a lady, but I can’t tell if Carrie Underwood actually enjoys wearing this. Still, the beading and embroidery is a lot of fun, even thought parts of it look a little too Christmas-y.

Kathy Hilton

The unlikely reality television star heard “purple” and treated it like it was as stringent as the dress code at Diddy’s White Hamptons party.

Amanza Smith and Vanessa Hardy Villela

I‘m sorry to keep subjecting you to Selling Sunset cast members, but I binged every episode and the show has since broken my brain. Vanessa isn’t even going to be on next season by all accounts, but that didn’t stop her from showing up to display the spot where a surgeon might make an incision to cut out her appendix! Amanza’s dress seems like a Project Runway season 2 reject that Tim Gunn hated.

Billy Porter

I think the jacket is what Moira Rose wore in the fantasy horror movie The Crows Have Eyes III: The Crowening in Schitt’s Creek, accessorized with Swarovski’s finest, plus some Julia Fox-lite eye makeup.