Photo by Gabriel Hutchinson (CC BY-SA)
The Lowdown
Twenty-five years in, Heidi Klum found a new way to be unrecognizable: she showed up to her own Halloween party as a bloody, oversized copy of her own left hand, with only her eyes and mouth peeking out (AP; BBC).
Key Takeaways
- Klum hosted her 25th annual Halloween party at Cathédrale in New York on Saturday, October 31, and arrived as a giant severed hand (AP; CBS News).
- The hand is a replica of her own, down to the long red nails, thumb ring, engagement ring, wedding band and the tattoo of husband Tom Kaulitz’s name on her ring finger (CBS News; Vogue).
- She told reporters it took about five to six hours to get into, and that roughly 10 to 20 people worked on it (CBS News; BBC).
- Kaulitz skipped the party because he was on tour (CBS News).
Heidi Klum on Instagram · October 31, 2026
The Story
Klum made her entrance surrounded by helpers in blood-spattered hazmat suits. The top of the hand ended in a gory tangle of dangling tendons, and she stuck out a blood-covered tongue for photographers (AP; CBS News).
The idea, she said, came from simply staring at her own hand. “I looked at my hand and I thought, ‘Hey, I think I could fit my body in this somehow,’” she told the AP (CBS News). She told the BBC it “took a lot of hands putting this hand together” (BBC).
Built from scans of her body
Her longtime costume designer Mike Marino led the build with his effects team, working from body scans he already had of Klum so the veins, palm lines and muscles matched her real hand. She first pitched the idea a year ago, but Marino asked her to finish Medusa first, she told Vogue (Vogue). Marino told PEOPLE the build itself took about four months (PEOPLE).
Wearing it was its own challenge. “Hands down, the hardest thing is carrying it,” Klum said. “It’s quite heavy.” With Kaulitz on the road, the tattoo had to stand in for him: “A little bit of Tom is with me” (CBS News).
The Background
Klum’s party has become one of Halloween’s biggest red carpets. Her past transformations include the werewolf from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” a peacock, E.T., Fiona from Shrek, and the 2022 worm that arrived dangling from a fishing line. Last year she went as Medusa, with Kaulitz as a soldier she’d turned to stone (CBS News; Variety).
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Model · TV Host
Heidi Klum is a German-American supermodel, TV host and producer famous for her over-the-top annual Halloween party.
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More Context
- Associated Press — Heidi Klum reveals much-anticipated Halloween costume ↗
- CBS News — Heidi Klum reveals a giant severed hand as 2026 Halloween costume ↗
- BBC News — Heidi Klum’s Halloween costume revealed ↗
- Vogue — How Heidi Klum transformed into a giant hand ↗
- Variety — Heidi Klum dressed up as a severed human hand ↗
- PEOPLE — Heidi Klum unrecognizable as a severed hand ↗