Dakota Johnson's Most Inappropriate Talk Show Outfits

Dakota Johnson has fronted Gucci campaigns, has Instagram accounts dedicated to her style, and even has fashion in her jeans (read: genes). But not in a Donald Trump learning Sydney Sweeney is Republican type of way. "My mom [Melanie Griffith] and I have different style, she's really good at cleaning out her closet and getting rid of things," she told Elle U.K. in 2022. "I am not. I'm a person that saves a lot of my clothes. I even save a lot of her clothes." Johnson's famous mom is basically her twin, so it's no wonder she keeps her hand-me-downs. We guess Johnson really is a "Materialist," if you pardon the pun. However, despite her tendency to stockpile clothes, it doesn't mean she always dresses for the occasion. Her penchant for high fashion sometimes leads to outlandish sartorial decisions that are inappropriate for, say, talk shows. 

To make matters worse, she is a famously prickly interviewee. Heck, one of Johnson's interviews was even named one of our worst moments of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." She's divisive to say the least. "Can't stop watching Dakota Johnson interviews," said one user on X. "I think I'm slightly obsessed with her." But other internet commentators are less fond of the "Social Network" actress. "[S]he's a 3rd generation nepo baby and there's no way in hell she would have 'made it' without her family connections," said one Reddit user. "Like no way in hell." 

So with her knack for making interviews awkward and some out-there style, it's no surprise that Johnson's more inappropriate outfits have done more talking on talk shows than her words have.

On "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon," while promoting "How to Be Single," Dakota Johnson's fit was more suited to a night in than a night out in front of an audience. An audience averaging over 3.5 million people, at that. The dress-slash-nightgown was sheer and pink with a cartoonish golden bow and pink collar, courtesy of Alessandro Michele's Gucci. A watchword for Michele's time at the Italian luxury fashion house was maximalism, and it certainly applied to this look. It was an inappropriate mix of high-end and dressed-down.

We love it when huge stars live like normal people, and we've all had WFH days in our pj's. But turning up to a talk show in a luxury version of something you could wear to bed is certainly a fashion faux pas. We know it's a late-night show, but that's the time it airs, not a dress code. 

Johnson and Michele are friends outside of work, so perhaps Johnson was just helping the designer promote his high-end clothes. Not that he needed it, considering he tripled Gucci's revenue in his time at the company. 

As will become increasingly clear, Dakota Johnson is sheer clothing's No. 1 fan. On "The Late Show With Seth Meyers" in 2025, Johnson did little to suggest otherwise. She wore a Nensi Dojaka black sheer midi dress over a form-hugging bodysuit. She looked a bit like a goth mummy, in both senses — an embalmed body wrapped in cloth and a mother who listens to The Cure. It was a little too risqué for a late-night talk show.

Sheer is an interesting material. For some, it's provocative. But for others, it's as normal as a white T-shirt or blue jeans: "90% of these dresses look tacky and over sexualized," said one user on Reddit. Meanwhile, others have suggested it's a look to live by and a summer obsession. Its controversial nature is not a new thing; the look has caused a stir for at least two centuries.

Whichever side of the argument you fall on, the all-seeing nature of the fabric means it might be too revealing for a talk show that is broadcast to around 900,000 people.

When Dakota Johnson took to the now-defunct "Late Late Show With James Corden" stage, alongside Josh Gad and the show's host, James Corden, her dress immediately became the subject of conversation. The "50 Shades of Grey" star wore an eye-popping red Magda Butrym minidress, with serious emphasis on the mini. Despite the show airing at 12:35 a.m., it was a little too mini to be appropriate for CBS.

"Are you good?" asked Corden at the start of the interview, nodding at her short red dress (via "The Late Late Show With James Corden") "No," exclaimed Johnson. "Are you all right? Are you worried?" continued Corden, before confirming with the audience there'd been no malfunctions. Johnson had an assured and witty response regarding her revealing choice of clothing, delivered with her characteristic deadpan wit, "I'm okay, it's nothing nobody hasn't already seen." 

Although this outfit showed a little too much skin, Johnson handled it like a pro. But talk shows are almost exclusively sit-down affairs, and Johnson's appeared on enough of them to know that her dress was an accident waiting to happen. As one Reddit user put it, "I really dislike when stylists put their client in too short dresses/skirts and they have to sit awkwardly or shift around the entire interview [a]nd it happens OFTEN." That user might as well have @'d Johnson. Because this wasn't the actress's first or last short dress rodeo.

"Oh God," Dakota Johnson, while sitting down on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." "This is the wrong outfit." At least, this time, she acknowledged that her ultra-short minidress-slash-blazer with a deep neckline was a little raunchy for the occasion. Ever the professional, the one-time "Office" guest star then took the awkwardness out of the situation by teasing Fallon with a "my eyes are up here" jibe. The Ferragamo-designed look accentuated her cleavage and was primed for a nip slip, which Johnson narrowly avoided. Not for the first time on a talk show, she was playing with sartorial fire.

The dress continued to interrupt the pair's chatter throughout the interview. "Tell me if there's a problem," Johnson told Fallon. "No there's not a problem. There's almost a problem, but not quite — it's just... everything is going according to plan," stumbled Fallon. In lieu of a blanket, the former "Saturday Night Live" star offered Johnson a tissue to cover the pear-shaped slit in her dress. But it was only a short-term solution for Johnson's long-term inappropriate outfitting problem.

In June 2024, on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," which isn't actually live, Dakota Johnson had an actual wardrobe malfunction. By now, it should be clear that Dakota Johnson is prone to the occasional sartorial mishap. So taping Kimmel's show was a smart decision from the producers.

"Part of your dress just came unhooked. You all right?" Kimmel asked Johnson after one of the floral straps that ran across her shoulders came loose. "My dress just — it just fell off," Johnson replied, attempting to laugh off the malfunction. She then conceded, "I'll just hold it." Soldiering on, the "Cha Cha Real Smooth" actress kept her hand against her left shoulder for the remainder of the interview.

Although her Bottega Veneta dress was appropriate, the fact that Johnson suffered an inappropriate wardrobe malfunction is about as surprising as the sun rising from the east or Travis Kelce's favorite Taylor Swift song. That is, it's not. Unfortunately, you'd expect more when buying from a brand that sells dresses for upward of $2,000. But that wasn't her only inappropriate outfit that day.

When arriving at the "Jimmy Kimmel Live" studios in Los Angeles, Dakota Johnson performed a stunning transformation, sartorially. The quintessential Johnson 'fit is a high-end dress. However, not to be pigeonholed, she performed a surprising style volte-face. But like any style transformation, this came with risks.

In Johnson's case, it came in the way of another inappropriate outfit, which would seem to be the "Peanut Butter Falcon" actress's Achilles' heel. Below her Bottega Veneta cat's eye sunglasses, she wore a toothpaste-white Khaite suit and Gucci Signoria slingback pumps. It was all a little much for an arrival at a talk show.

Johnson's look, although fitting into 2024's popular corpcore trend, was more suited (again, pardon the pun) to the boardroom than a brief stroll into a TV studio. This isn't the only time on this list she'd wear something over the top. In fairness, Johnson knows more than most that when the TV cameras aren't rolling, the paparazzi bulbs are still flashing. But it's all the more baffling that she has worn less dressed-up looks on an actual talk show.

"To go out into the world, do hair and makeup and wear an outfit to look a certain way, it's super jarring," Dakota Johnson told Elle U.K. in 2021. "So to wear clothes in which I feel like myself is vital. I feel like, 'Okay, this is a version of me.'" These are words she clearly lives by, as she showed with her more casual look on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" in 2016.

There's an unwritten rule that requires women to dress up on talk shows. But Johnson is a rule breaker. If the previous look on this list was Johnson dressing like a CEO, then this look is her dressing like the CEO's receptionist. 

However, the proceedings were far from professional. Johnson sipped tequila with Colbert, and he announced, "All of this is going to be cut out, CBS will not let any of this on TV." In fairness to Johnson, it was the Met Gala the night before she appeared on the show. At the annual fashion bonanza, she donned an extravagant starry Gucci dress and left at 1 a.m. So perhaps she wasn't in the mood to dress up again. This inappropriate outfit wasn't Johnson's or her stylists' fault; it was whoever manages her schedule.

On "Late Night With Seth Meyers" in 2024, what did Dakota Johnson wear? It was, of course, a revealing black sheer dress. A little too revealing, one might say. This time, the dress was designed by fashion's premier provocateur, Tom Ford.

Johnson was at 30 Rockefeller Plaza to promote her film "Madame Web." In the "Spider-Man"-adjacent flick, she plays a clairvoyant. If only she or her stylist had similar powers that instead perceive how inappropriate an outfit is. 

To ensure some modesty, Johnson added a black bodysuit beneath the garment and accessorized with a Gucci bag. But it was still her revealing dress that made headlines for being "daring," as People put it. "[W]ouldn't it be more impactful to read headlines about brilliant pieces of work by filmmakers," noted writer Billie Bhatia when speaking to The Telegraph about the Cannes Film Festival's sheer gown ban.  "[R]ather than a potential nipple slip?" We agree. We've seen one too many inappropriate sheer looks on Johnson.

In an earlier appearance on "Late Night With Seth Meyers" in 2017 to promote her erotic romance "Fifty Shades Darker," Dakota Johnson looked ready for her big day, and by that we mean her wedding day, not one of the many times she has appeared on talk shows. The dress featured long sleeves with a keyhole cutout at the neckline that flowed right down to Johnson's feet and her silver block-heeled Alumnae 3-band sandals. The look comes from Sonia Rykiel's Pre-Fall 2017 collection, and made Johnson look like a '70s-era bride. Throw a sepia filter over this talk show appearance, and you wouldn't look twice if someone told you it was a snapshot from a distant relative's wedding in a family photo album.

It's surprising that Johnson decided to wear a pearl-colored velour wedding-style dress. We're scratching our heads. The only reason we're suggesting it's wedding-style is that it wasn't worn at a wedding. Hey, at least she didn't wear it to someone else's wedding.

But some fans certainly seemed to dig the look. "[S]he's wearing a lovely dress and she's so cute," said one in YouTube's below-the-line comments. But wearing a wedding dress while not at a wedding is like wearing a football jersey and shoulder pads to play chess. It's just unnecessary.

If there's one brand that screams glamour, it's Gucci. But there's a fine line between glamourous and gaudy. Dakota Johnson fell into the latter category with her bright red '60s style Gucci dress from their Pre-Fall 2021 collection, which also featured ruffled cuffs and sequins.

Unlike many of her other outfits on this list, this one was not too revealing or provocative. The issue was one of taste, or lack thereof. "I got really excited to leave my house," she said on "The Late Late Show With James Corden" in 2021 regarding her dress. "So I just brought out the big guns." In the midst of the pandemic, the average Joe was likely to be seen in leisurewear — like sweatpants and even sleepwear — or a button-down shirt with sports shorts in a Zoom meeting. In this context, dressing like a woman at a cocktail party in the swinging '60s probably isn't quite appropriate. "Wearing the correct dress for any occasion is a matter of good manners," as "Midnight Mary" actress Loretta Young famously put it (via IMDb). Take heed, Dakota.

Another OTT pandemic-era look from Dakota Johnson came during a socially distanced chat on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in May 2020. In their backyards, Kimmel wore an uncharacteristically disheveled-looking button-down shirt and unstyled hair. Johnson, on the other hand, wore a bright (and we mean bright) pink dress with huge (and we mean huge) puffy sleeves.

"It's hard to wear this," Johnson blurted out mid-interview (as per "Jimmy Kimmel Live"). "It smells like feet ... I think it came from like a bizarro runway somewhere." Bizarro is certainly the word, and the internet commentariat seemed to agree. "And only one of them is wearing their pool floaters as a dress," said one user on X about Johnson's baffling outfit. "Maybe Jimmy is too."

Perhaps for both comfort and the effort to remain tasteful during a pandemic, Johnson could've taken style cues from her aforementioned appearance on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" in 2021 and worn something a bit less extravagant. It certainly would have been more appropriate.