Hot news

Supermodel Heidi Klum throws a Halloween party every year, and her costumes are famously elaborate. In 2008, Klum dressed as Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, leading some Hindus to decry her appropriation of an important religious symbol. Click through the gallery for more costume fails.

Rule 1: No blackface. Actress and dancer Julianne Hough learned this rule the hard way when she dressed as "Orange is the New Black" character "Crazy Eyes" for Halloween in 2013. "It certainly was never my intention to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone in any way. I realize my costume hurt and offended people and I truly apologize," Hough said via Twitter.

No whiteface, either! Actor and TV host Nick Cannon dressed up as a character he called "Connor Smallnut" for a series of videos. Tweeters objected that the caricature was "racist" and "hypocritical."

"Octomom" Nadya Suleman dressed as a pregnant nun and styled her children as little devils one Halloween. Her costume may have held personal significance, but it also had the potential to incite the ire of Catholics.

Paris Hilton attended the Playboy Mansion Halloween Party in 2010 dressed in native American-style regalia. American Indian activists have been vocal in recent years about how offensive it can be to wear native headdresses out of context.

Photos surfaced in 2005 of Britain's Prince Harry wearing a Nazi uniform at a costume party. Come on, Harry!

This sassy number was advertised as an "Anna Rexia" costume. Get it? Anorexia? Deadly medical conditions are the sexiest ones!

British retailers have removed "mental patient" and "psycho ward" Halloween costumes from their online stores. Schizophrenia isn't so lighthearted, so maybe remove them from your costume closet, too?

(CNN) -- Freeze! Step away from the stack of face masks and hazmat suits.

"What's more topical than Ebola?" you're thinking. "It's the perfect inspiration for a Halloween costume, right?!"

No. Just ... no.

Using tragic current events as fodder for Halloween costumes is nothing new, but it's often a hackneyed and insensitive choice.

"Prom night toilet baby" was a popular costume after a spate of girls gave birth to secret babies at school, and a bloodied duo strolled into a party dressed as Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman just last year.

Knee-slappers, right?

They might evoke a chuckle from the crasser among us, but do you really want to be the hero of the most obnoxious person at the party or, worse, the most-hated person on Twitter?

Photos have already surfaced of a bro dressed as former Baltimore Raven Ray Rice and dragging around a lifeless doll meant to stand in for domestic violence victim Janay Rice.

Janay Rice, a real person with actual feelings, weighed in on the tastelessness: "@TMZ it's sad, that my suffering amuses others."

Don't be the guy wearing the cruel, uncreative costume.

Dallas is reeling from the first Ebola cases transmitted on U.S. soil. Predictably, some local resident chose to decorate his front yard as a biohazard zone. It's unclear how the families of those who are fighting for their lives feel about the stunt, but you'd think fellow Dallas denizens would have a little tact.

"Money can't buy empathy or good taste (shaking my head)," Sandra Mundie James wrote to CNN Dallas affiliate WFAA on Facebook.

That about sums it up. So maybe shelve the brilliant ideas that involve dead celebrities, biohazards, missing plane passengers, terrorists and domestic abusers.

Yep, it's been a rough year, but why memorialize it around a spider-filled punchbowl at the office party?