We’ve seen long nails with hoop piercings dangling from their tips, but does that mean people with short nails can’t get in on the fun? Not if you ask Alysa Liu! The Olympic gold medalist attended the American Music Awards in Las Vegas on May 25 with multiple new piercings: one on her face and a few on her hands. Well, kiiiiinda.
Liu walked the red carpet in an all-black, rock ‘n roll-inspired outfit embellished with silver studs and chains, and she mimicked that look with her jewelry, most notably on her nails. Liu’s short nails were painted with a sheer black jelly polish and topped with silver nail jewelry to resemble piercings, like a bar across the tip of her pinky and ring fingers and studs on her thumb. Her nails weren’t actually pierced, don’t worry— they’re just decorated with some clever charms to create the illusion of piercings. Nail art, but make it punk rock.
The pierced manicure absolutely fits Liu’s vibe, and we’ve seen it a few times in the past, including on Chappell Roan, who wore a pierced nude manicure at Paris Fashion Week in early 2025. (We thought it looked a lot like nipple piercings, and are we wrong?)
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The nail jewelry wasn’t the only new addition to Liu’s lineup, either. She’s most famous for her “smiley,” or frenulum piercing, which can be seen when she smiles, but now the figure skater also has a bridge piercing placed on either side of her nose. (As the name suggests, a bridge piercing is a surface piercing that either goes across the nose or frames the bridge.) Paired nostril piercings like the bridge made our list of the top piercing trends for 2026, so we’re not entirely surprised to see them on Liu. “Nostril piercings allow for a surprising amount of creativity, from paired and double placements to elegant, stacked configurations,” Maria Tash, jewelry designer and founder of Maria Tash Fine Jewelry and Luxury Piercing in Los Angeles, previously told Allure. “It seems that today’s modern nose piercing sees the whole plane of cartilage as pierceable, not just the traditional small area halfway back on the side of the nostril.” Nails, nostrils… gotta pierce ’em all!
