Heidi Klum’s 2025 Halloween costume revealed: a terrifying Medusa with animatronic snakes—and Tom Kaulitz turned to stone

Heidi Klum upheld her “Queen of Halloween” crown on October 31, 2025, unveiling an ultra-detailed Medusa at her annual New York bash. Cloaked head to toe in iridescent green scales, jagged fangs, opaque lenses and a writhing crown of moving serpents, Klum’s mythic monster was engineered to be monstrous rather than glamorous—and it worked. Her husband Tom Kaulitz completed the tableau as a man turned to stone, a direct nod to the legend that anyone who meets Medusa’s gaze is petrified on the spot.

Inside the transformation: months of planning, hours in the chair

Klum’s Halloween looks are less “costumes” than temporary creature builds. This year’s Medusa combined custom prosthetics, full-body paint, precision airbrushing, and a headpiece wired for motion so the snakes appeared alive under the cameras. The silhouette—a scaled corsetry base with articulated fins and mottled texture—gave makeup artists anchor points for seamless edges, allowing the scaly skin to photograph like a single surface rather than patchwork pieces. Klum teased the process in the run-up with mold casts and movement tests; on the day, she logged a marathon session to get from bare face to Gorgon.

Staging the myth: Heidi and Tom as a living diorama

The couple’s coordinated reveal doubled as performance art. Klum slithered through step-and-repeat poses while Kaulitz, in cracked-gray makeup and distressed armor, held rigid stances as if frozen mid-stride. The pairing turned the red carpet into a mini-stage: Medusa as the apex predator, her victim already claimed. It’s the kind of narrative staging that has defined Klum’s recent Halloweens—less punny outfit, more immersive world-building.

Family cameo: Leni Klum’s storybook twist

Adding a bright counterpoint to the night’s horror, Leni Klum arrived in full-body paint inspired by the children’s book A Bad Case of Stripes, complete with rainbow stripes, a bow-topped wig and prop book in hand. The mother–daughter photo op—one whimsical, one terrifying—was an instant crowd-pleaser and a neat summary of the evening’s range.

Why Medusa—and why now?

Medusa is one of mythology’s most reinterpreted figures: a monster to some, a wronged woman weaponized by legend to others. Klum’s brief pre-party remarks framed her take as intentionally “ugly” and creaturely, pushing past the easy path of a glamour Medusa with a sparkly gown and static snakes. The result placed craftsmanship over camp, with the moving headpiece and scalework doing the storytelling.

Heidi Klum Halloween costumes over the years: the escalating canon

Klum’s 2025 Medusa slots into a two-decade timeline of escalating ambition. Among the most-discussed in recent memory:

• 2022: The photoreal worm, achieved with a full-body prosthetic tube that left only her eyes visible.

• 2019: A bio-mechanical alien, layered with exposed “muscle,” tubing and bolts.

• 2016: The famed multiples gag, when she appeared with a squad of lookalikes, all styled as Heidi.

• 2015: A hyper-real Jessica Rabbit with radical facial prosthetics.

• 2023–2024: Large-scale, ensemble-driven creatures that turned the carpet into a choreographed tableau.

Each outing advances the technical bar—more animatronics, more seamless edges, and more narrative framing—making the reveal itself a Halloween ritual.

Party notes: venue, guest energy, and the runway of scares

The star-studded event took over a Midtown venue with a carpet engineered for wide frames (necessary to capture Medusa’s headpiece) and lighting balanced for green tones so the scales flashed rather than flattened. Guests leaned big: movie monsters, pop-culture icons, and a wave of high-fashion ghouls. The atmosphere split the difference between costume ball and effects showcase—exactly the lane Klum has carved since she began hosting these parties at the turn of the millennium.

Craft takeaways for serious costumers

• Build around motion. Even a single moving element (here, the snakes) elevates the entire read.

• Texture beats color alone. Layered scalework and mottling keep body paint from looking flat under flash.

• Commit to silhouette. Creature shapes sell from 20 feet away; details are the reward up close.

• Tell a story. A paired look (Medusa/stone victim) turns still photography into a scene.

Heidi Klum’s 2025 Medusa wasn’t about beauty with a serpentine twist—it was a full creature performance, engineered to unsettle. With Tom Kaulitz cast as her stone-struck foil and Leni offering a playful counter-theme, the queen of Halloween once again transformed a red carpet into a myth made real. If the annual question is “How will she top last year?”—this year’s answer slithered in on a crown of living snakes.