Heidi Klum turns her own hand into Halloween art — and 25 years of celebrity couples costumes ranked

Heidi Klum arrived at her 25th annual Halloween party at Cathédrale restaurant in New York City on October 31 inside a truck marked 'danger,' surrounded by actors in yellow hazmat suits — and she was unrecognizable. She had spent six hours getting ready that morning, the culmination of months of work by a team of artists, to become a hyper-realistic, bloody severed hand modeled directly on her own left hand, down to the green stone wedding ring and a finger tattoo reading 'Tom' in honor of husband Tom Kaulitz.

Literally, my left hand inspired me. I looked at my hand and I was thinking, 'How can I fit my body into this hand?' There must be a way... Two legs could fit into fingers and the body in my palm, and it did work.— Heidi Klum

Kaulitz, who has been her costumed partner in previous years, was absent this time due to touring, according to WWD. The red nail polish on the prosthetic was a deliberate choice.

I do like red nails, but also for the photo afterwards — I think a red nail just pops, you know, on the red carpet.— Heidi Klum

The party, now in its 25th year, has drawn a constellation of elaborately costumed guests. This year, Neil Patrick Harris and husband David Burtka arrived as the Grady twins from the 1980 horror film 'The Shining,' wearing matching pale blue dresses, pink ribbons, white knee-high socks, black Mary Jane shoes, dark wigs, and ghostly makeup with bloodshot eyes, according to Hello Magazine. Taylor Momsen channeled AC/DC guitarist Angus Young in a red blazer, matching shorts, and a red cap, while Eric McCormack transformed into Freddie Mercury with a thick black mustache, aviator sunglasses, and a black leather jacket.

Klum's escalating ambition is not new. Her 2025 Medusa costume — in which she wore a full green prosthetic bodysuit with scales, a moving crown of snakes, fake teeth, and a tail — took five months to prepare and involved around 15 people hand-painting every detail. Kaulitz appeared alongside her as a warrior she had turned to stone. The year before, in 2024, the couple arrived as different versions of E.T. from the 1982 film, with Kaulitz as the traditional alien and Klum as the disguised version — in a black hat, blonde wig, and red shawl.

I've seen over the years obviously many, many Medusas, and I thought, 'You know, one day I'm going to try my own.' I really wanted to have snakes that were moving, a super-ugly, super-scary face, really ugly teeth, and to be like a really long rattlesnake.— Heidi Klum

And it's worked, because, over the years, people have become increasingly more outrageous with their costumes. The party has become almost legendary. It's epic. I feel like my love for Halloween has made other people fall in love with the holiday, too.— Heidi Klum

Klum, who moved to the United States from Germany, has described Halloween as a holiday she embraced after arriving in America. She told E! News that her Medusa look was something she had been thinking about 'for quite some time' before executing it.

Beyond Klum's party, other celebrity couples have used Halloween to stage their own elaborate transformations. In 2024, Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco dressed as Alice and the Mad Hatter — Gomez in a blue dress, white socks, and blonde wig, Blanco in a big top hat, orange wig, and white face makeup. Gomez captioned the Instagram post, 'Curiouser and curiouser..'

In 2023, Paris Hilton appeared at the Casamigos Halloween Party as Britney Spears in the 'Toxic' music video — a futuristic blue flight attendant uniform with metallic silver-heeled boots and sunglasses — while husband Carter Reum stood beside her in an airline pilot uniform. That same year, Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker dressed as Beetlejuice and Lydia Deetz at their wedding, with Barker in green hair, white makeup, and a burgundy suit, and Kardashian in a red lace dress holding a bouquet of roses. Kardashian captioned the post: 'I'm the ghost with the most, babe.'

Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber dressed as David Bowie and Debbie Harry at their Halloween party in 2018, with Gerber wearing a Union Jack coat and painting a red lightning bolt over one eye to evoke Bowie's Ziggy Stardust alter ego. Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr. have leaned into '80s cinema repeatedly: in 2019 they appeared as Doc Brown and Marty McFly from 'Back to the Future,' and in another year recreated a scene from the 1987 film 'Dirty Dancing' as Baby Houseman and Johnny Castle. Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin, meanwhile, cosplayed as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo from 'I Love Lucy,' with Rinna in a red wig and polka-dot dress mimicking Lucy's classic expression.

What unites the best of these looks is commitment — to prosthetics, to character, to the bit. Klum, who has been doing this for a quarter century, put it plainly when explaining why she never previews her costume.

I love for people to see this and think whatever they want to think for the first time when I go on the red carpet. I never like to share it before, because then people are gonna be like, 'Oh, it wasn't as good as I thought it was gonna be.'— Heidi Klum

Why it matters — Klum's 25-year run of technically demanding Halloween transformations has measurably raised the stakes for celebrity costume culture, turning a single party into an annual benchmark that other stars now openly compete with.

Reported by foxnews.com, eonline.com, wwd.com, usatoday.com, hollywoodreporter.com, hellomagazine.com