Janet Jackson's Super Bowl Wardrobe Malfunction: Overtime Win for CBS, Thanks to Supreme Court

Looks like the FCC is gonna have to pay some big bucks back to CBS

By Bruna Nessif Jun 29, 2012 11:22 PMTags
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Talk about an expensive wardrobe malfunction.

It may have been more than eight years ago, but the infamous Janet Jackson nip slip during her live performance with Justin Timberlake at the 2004 Super Bowl lives on, and now the Supreme Court has refused to review a lower court's decision that threw out the Federal Communications Commission's $550,000 fine on CBS.

So, what does that mean, exactly?

Well, since CBS already forked the money over, the FCC is now going to have to find a way to pay the chunk of change back.

But Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who agreed with the decision not to hear the case, pointed out that the FCC has since stopped excusing such fleeting indecencies.

"Any future 'wardrobe malfunctions' will not be protected," Roberts said.

CBS is more than pleased with the news.

"We are gratified to finally put this episode behind us," CBS said in a statement. "It's been more than eight years since we expressed deep regret for the Super Bowl halftime show. As observers of this issue are aware, at that time we took immediate steps to implement delays on all live entertainment programs so that we could safeguard against similar incidents of unintended and spontaneous snippets of live broadcasts. Since then, all we ever sought was an affirmation of the long-established policy of balanced, consistent and deliberate indecency enforcement the FCC had followed for decades before the incident."

Wardrobe tape and pasties, people, that's all it takes.