Top 10 Most Controversial Olympic Ceremonies

Hitler's opening ceremony was a masterclass in totalitarian pageantry, filmed by Leni Riefenstahl and designed to project Aryan supremacy — the most politically weaponized Olympic ceremony in history.

A nine-year-old girl lip-synced to another child's voice deemed "not cute enough," and digitally faked firework footprints were inserted into the broadcast, tainting an otherwise stunning $100 million ceremony.

One of the five Olympic snowflakes failed to transform into a ring on live television, becoming an instant meme. The ceremony's extravagance amid the $51 billion Games budget symbolized Putin's Russia in microcosm.

Sixty-five nations boycotted the Games over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, leaving vast empty sections in the stadium and the ceremony marred by political protest signs carried by remaining delegations.

The pandemic-delayed Games opened to a virtually empty 68,000-seat National Stadium, with muted music, masked athletes, and a lonely drone show creating the most surreal and melancholy ceremony in Olympic history.

Björk's dress unraveling across the stadium floor divided opinion, but the real controversy was the opening ceremony's $90 million cost for a country already drowning in Olympic debt that would fuel its economic crisis.

Acting President Michel Temer was loudly booed by 78,000 spectators when he declared the Games open, with the crowd chanting "Fora Temer" (Temer out) in a ceremony overshadowed by Brazil's political crisis.

The tattered American flag recovered from Ground Zero was carried into the ceremony, with some nations objecting to the politicization of the Games while Americans viewed it as a necessary act of healing.

Danny Boyle's ceremony celebrated the National Health Service with 600 dancing nurses and glowing hospital beds, enraging Conservative politicians who saw it as a Labour political statement broadcast to 900 million viewers.

Hitler's opening ceremony was a masterclass in totalitarian pageantry, filmed by Leni Riefenstahl and designed to project Aryan supremacy — the most politically weaponized Olympic ceremony in history.

A nine-year-old girl lip-synced to another child's voice deemed "not cute enough," and digitally faked firework footprints were inserted into the broadcast, tainting an otherwise stunning $100 million ceremony.

One of the five Olympic snowflakes failed to transform into a ring on live television, becoming an instant meme. The ceremony's extravagance amid the $51 billion Games budget symbolized Putin's Russia in microcosm.

Sixty-five nations boycotted the Games over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, leaving vast empty sections in the stadium and the ceremony marred by political protest signs carried by remaining delegations.

The pandemic-delayed Games opened to a virtually empty 68,000-seat National Stadium, with muted music, masked athletes, and a lonely drone show creating the most surreal and melancholy ceremony in Olympic history.

Björk's dress unraveling across the stadium floor divided opinion, but the real controversy was the opening ceremony's $90 million cost for a country already drowning in Olympic debt that would fuel its economic crisis.

Acting President Michel Temer was loudly booed by 78,000 spectators when he declared the Games open, with the crowd chanting "Fora Temer" (Temer out) in a ceremony overshadowed by Brazil's political crisis.

The tattered American flag recovered from Ground Zero was carried into the ceremony, with some nations objecting to the politicization of the Games while Americans viewed it as a necessary act of healing.

Danny Boyle's ceremony celebrated the National Health Service with 600 dancing nurses and glowing hospital beds, enraging Conservative politicians who saw it as a Labour political statement broadcast to 900 million viewers.