Melissa Rauch once revealed far more than she ever intended during a hilarious makeup mishap on the set of The Big Bang Theory.
While she’s best known as the sweet and witty Bernadette, Rauch’s behind-the-scenes experiences often turned out much wilder than her on-screen character. One of the funniest—and most awkward—stories came to light during PaleyFest in 2014, when she joined her co-stars on stage to share memorable filming moments.
Fans may recall her embarrassing “masturbation” misunderstanding during her first day on set in 2009. But perhaps even more shocking was the time she ended up, in her own words, “totally exposing” herself in front of the crew.
The incident happened during the season six Halloween episode, The Holographic Excitation, when Bernadette and Howard transformed into Smurfs. Rauch and Simon Helberg spent hours painted blue from head to toe to get into character.
In the episode, Bernadette even jokes about scrubbing the paint off her “smurf” for weeks. Ironically, that line ended up being much closer to real life for Rauch.
The real trouble began once filming wrapped and the actors had to remove the heavy paint. Helberg teased the incident at PaleyFest, prompting Rauch to share the full story.
She joked about the struggle, saying: “I’m still wiping it off! I’m still finding it in places.”
Helberg recalled how exhausting the process was, adding: “We both had to sit next to each other and there’s just a point where you just start to like go into kind of a meditative state.”
He continued: “You’re just sitting there, it’s like hour two, and it’s just a guy just rubbing as hard as you can and you’re already blue, and you don’t know how much bluer you can get – but they’re convinced it’s going to be another hour and a half of blueness. And then they had to take it off and I was sitting next to Melissa. I finished first, but then you later realised something horrible…”
Rauch explained that by then it was late, and exhaustion was setting in:
“I have really sensitive skin so they’re like packing me with hot towels and I’m starting to fall asleep.”
Things took an awkward turn when the makeup team tried to reach the last patches of paint.
“It’s two dudes and then my regular makeup artist – who went out of the trailer to get some more hot towels. And I’m in a bodysuit underneath this dress and they were like, ‘Could you just lift up your legs to get the rest of the makeup out from under your legs?’ So I lift my legs up and close my eyes, and I hear one of the guys go, ‘Huh’. And I just thought oh they’re they’re just telling jokes back and forth to each other. Then I look in the mirror, and I was like, ‘What’s that? What is that?’”
That’s when she realized the full extent of what had happened:
“Then I was like, ‘Dear Lord Jesus, that is my business’. I had totally exposed myself.”
Instead of panicking, Rauch handled it with humor, recalling:
“Then I put my legs down and then just looked at them and said, ‘Long night’. That is, that’s the tale of my Smurfette.”
A mortifying moment for most—but a hilarious story for fans.
