NEW YORK — Heidi Klum embraced the Halloween spirit on Friday by transforming into the mythical Medusa, complete with green scales and a head full of writhing snakes.

Klum explained her fascination with the Greek legend of Medusa, a tale where a goddess curses a beautiful woman, turning her into a fearsome creature with snake hair, whose gaze petrifies anyone who looks into her eyes.

“I wanted to be an incredibly hideous version of Medusa, and I think we truly achieved that,” Klum said, highlighting the fangs she wore for the costume.

Joining her in the Halloween festivities, her husband, musician Tom Kaulitz, dressed as a man who had been turned to stone.

Klum revealed that her elaborate transformation took a total of 10 hours, but she insisted it was time well spent due to her love for the holiday celebration.

The former supermodel and current TV personality made headlines in 2022 when she made a memorable entrance at her Halloween party, dressed in a worm costume and arriving theatrically at the end of a fishing line.

In past years, Klum has come dressed as an 8-foot-tall (2.4-meter-tall) “Transformer,” a werewolf from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video, a clone accompanied by several Klum-lookalikes, and Kali, the multiarmed Hindu goddess of death and destruction.

Klum has said she starts planning her costume for the next year immediately after her party wraps.

Among the other celebrities who walked the carpet at the Hard Rock Hotel New York were a green-painted Darren Criss as Shrek, Maye Musk as Cruella de Vil and Ariana Madix as Lady Gaga.

Last year, Klum and Janelle Monáe turned up to their respective parties in the same costume: E.T.

Monáe was hosting her annual party on Friday, too, and came dressed as a vampire attacked by a shark. The actress and singer-songwriter turned the entire month into a series of Halloween-themed immersive experiences across the Los Angeles area, concluding with a party at her home in Studio City. Earlier in the week, she had dressed as the Cat in the Hat.

“Halloween gives context to what I already do every day,” Monáe told The Associated Press earlier in October. “As an artist, I’m always transforming, world-building and inviting people to play in the worlds I create.”
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This story has been corrected to show that Janelle Monáe was dressed as a vampire on Friday, not the Cat in the Hat.
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Associated Press journalists John Carucci in New York, Jordan Hicks in Los Angeles, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu contributed reporting.