Tara Reid: 'Flash' Was Accident

(AP)  Tara Reid says she had no idea she was flashing the paparazzi when the strap of her dress slipped off her left shoulder as she walked the red carpet at Sean "P. Diddy" Combs' 35th birthday party last year.

"I swear to you, I had no idea that had happened," Reid said in an interview Thursday on the syndicated entertainment TV show "Access Hollywood." Excerpts were released in advance.

"I had a fur coat on, so when I took the coat off, the coat was heavy, and the strap came out with the coat. They were like, `Tara, let me see the dress, let me see the dress.' ... I didn't see the strap fall down, so I'm smiling like an idiot. ... Then, when someone came up to me, I was like, `Oh, I'm so embarrassed!"'

The 29-year-old actress said she was upset at the photographers' reaction to her wardrobe malfunction.

"I just hated that the paparazzi were high-fiving each other and laughing," she said. "It was so cruel. But it happened and ... you move on."

The incident was reminiscent of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction that caused her right breast to be flashed before a TV audience of some 90 million during CBS' Super Bowl halftime show in 2004. The aftershock, still being felt, bestirred quakes of righteous indignation, finger-pointing and taped delays, along with stiff fines to broadcasters from fired-up federal regulators bent on reimposing decency on the airwaves.

Reid also said she doesn't understand why she's labeled a party girl.

"What's the worst I've ever done? Dance on a table? Like, get drunk and dance on a table, what's so bad about that?"

Reid added that now that she's getting older, she's "calming down a lot."