Sofia Vergara was happy to show some skin at the Emmys last night – her teal Zuhair Murad mermaid dress featured sexy cut-outs in the front and back – but she revealed a little more than she planned.

Twenty minutes before the actress and her Modern Family co-stars took the stage to accept the award for Outstanding Comedy Series on Sunday, the zipper on her gown broke, leaving her posterior exposed. The 40-year-old Colombia native reacted quickly by wrapping her fiancé Nick Loeb’s tuxedo jacket around her waist and running backstage to get emergency repairs from her style team.

[Related:Emmys 2012 Red Carpet Report Card]

How the story differs from most A-list wardrobe malfunctions: Vergara later posted a photo of the very revealing incident on WhoSay and tweeted a link to her 2.7 million Twitter followers. The not-safe-for-work photo (which you can see here) showed a portion of Vergara’s exposed rear as well as her underwear. A second photo showed a woman actually stitching up the back of the dress.

Always good-natured, Vergara – who lost the Supporting Actress in a Comedy to her co-star Julie Bowen – took it in stride, posting this caption with the racy photo, “Yes!!!! This happened 20 min before we won!!!! Jajajajja. I luv my life!!!!”

[Related: 2012 Emmy Award Winners]

When Vergara took the stage with the rest of the Modern Family cast at the end of the night, you wouldn’t have guessed she had just experienced any designer dress drama. In fact, she looked as stylish and stunning as ever. And whatever the stylist did to fix the gown surely worked because Vergara wore the beaded number for the rest of the evening as she partied the night away. Vergara brought 19 people – including Loeb, her mother, and her son, Manolo – to the show and later the after-parties. It was from those bashes, including the Fox and HBO parties, that she posted numerous photos in which she was dancing … a lot. “This is how the Colombians partyyy at the Emmys!!” the dancing queen tweeted with the pix.

Story continues

[Related: Sofia Vergara on the importance of being bootylicious: ‘In Latin America, if you don’t have a big a--, you’re nothing’]

In the September issue of Allure, Vergara talked about her famous rear. Sharing that her ideal weight is 130, Vergara said that when it drops below that number, typically when she's feeling stressed or not eating right, she gets unhappy about it. "My a-- gets smaller, and my boobs get smaller,” she said. "I don't mind when the boobs get smaller. I don't like when the a-- gets smaller. In Latin America, if you don't have a big a--, you're nothing." Clearly, she's proud of her roots and culture. "We're loud. We're passionate. We're colorful. We're voluptuous… I am not scared of the stereotype of the Latin woman, because I think it's fantastic."

And she’s not scared of sharing a wardrobe malfunction either.