Every year, the first Monday in May means it's Met Gala time, and WHEW! I'm excited.
While the gala is typically known for the fashion, there's also no shortage of drama.
Here are 11 of the wildest Met Gala scandals, from Madonna's dress that showed her entire butt to celebs getting denied at the door at Rihanna's afterparty:
1. While heading to an afterparty at New York City's Standard hotel following the 2014 Met Gala, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and Bey's sister Solange entered an elevator, where Solange scratched, kicked, and yelled at Jay-Z while Beyoncé watched. Footage from the elevator leaked just a week after the incident, and soon everyone was wondering exactly WTF happened.
On May 15, 2014, Beyoncé, Solange, and Jay-Z released a joint statement: "The most important thing is that our family has worked through it. Jay and Solange each assume their share of responsibility for what has occurred. They both acknowledge their role in this private matter that has played out in the public. They both have apologized to each other and we have moved forward as a united family." Despite the statement, rumors continued to swirl, with many believing that Solange's outburst was because Jay-Z had been cheating on Beyoncé. Some pointed fingers at Rachel Roy, a fashion designer who was close with Jay-Z.
In the years since, both Bey and Jay have referenced the incident through their lyrics. In 2016, Beyoncé released Lemonade and sang, "Looking at my watch, he shoulda been home / Today I regret the night I put that ring on." The album also included her infamous "Becky with the good hair" line. Jay-Z also discussed the drama on his 4:44 album with this lyric: "You egged Solange on / Knowin' all along / All you had to say you was wrong / You almost went Eric Benét / Let the baddest girl in the world get away / I don't even know what else to say," namedropping Halle Berry's ex-husband, who cheated on her. Luckily, the trio seems to have completely moved past the drama.
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2. At the 2017 Met Gala, a group of celebs got busted smoking in the bathroom. Stars like Bella Hadid, Dakota Johnson, and Paris Jackson snapped selfies of themselves lighting up in the bathroom. The photos majorly upset Met donors and board members, who turned to Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue and chair of the Met Gala. The smoking even led Dr. Mary Bassett, New York City's health commissioner, to pen a letter scolding the celebs for making "smoking their fashion accessory." Bassett also pointed out that smoking violated the city's health laws, exposing fellow gala-goers to secondhand smoke.
This photo is like taken at a college party except for the fancy dresses #metgala
In order to prevent the same issue from happening at the 2018 event, Wintour implemented a new rule, writing on the invitation that smoking at the event was banned. "No Smoking" signs were scattered throughout the event, and guards were supposedly trained to sniff out smoke. That didn't stop some celebs, though! In 2019, Cole Sprouse was caught smoking in the back of a friend's selfie — breaking both the no-smoking and the no-selfie rules.
3. The Met Gala is notorious for some interesting looks, but Madonna's 2016 Met outfit stirred quite the controversy. The singer chose a custom, all-black Givenchy outfit that bared her butt. Once the look went public, fans began criticizing the amount of skin Madonna was showing, with people saying she "hijacked" the red carpet with her "desperate" look. The singer immediately shot back, posting an Instagram where she defended her dress, calling it a political statement. "My dress at the Met Ball was a political statement as well as a fashion statement. The fact that people actually believe a woman is not allowed to express her sexuality and be adventurous past a certain age is proof that we still live in an age-ist and sexist society."
4. I, for one, am incredibly intrigued by the seating chart at the Met Gala, which supposedly takes months to complete. At the 2016 Met Gala, Lena Dunham found herself seated beside NFL wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. Dunham, who donned a tuxedo at the gala, said that OBJ seemed uninterested in talking to her. “I was sitting next to Odell Beckham Jr., and it was so amazing because it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards,” she said in an interview. “He was like, ‘That’s a marshmallow. That’s a child. That’s a dog.’ It wasn’t mean — he just seemed confused. The vibe was very much like, ‘Do I want to fuck it? Is it wearing a … yep, it’s wearing a tuxedo. I’m going to go back to my cellphone.'"
Dunham's statements immediately caused controversy on social media. In the days following, she attempted to clarify, tweeting: "@OBJ_3 is talented, stylish, seems super awesome and wasn’t into chatting with me at a fancy party. My story about him was clearly (to me) about my own insecurities as an average-bodied woman at a table of supermodels & athletes. It’s not an assumption about who he is or an expectation of sexual attention. It’s my sense of humor, which has kept me alive for 30 years." Despite the apology, Dunham found herself under fire. She later released a longer statement, in which she said she had projected her own insecurities onto Beckham, even though she didn't know anything about him. When asked if the comments struck a nerve, OBJ told the New York Times that he "didn't have much to say about that."
.@OBJ_3 is talented, stylish, seems super awesome and wasn't into chatting with me at a fancy party.
5. I mean, who wouldn't want to go to Rihanna's Met Gala afterparty? Turns out, it's quite the exclusive invite, as Eddie Redmayne unfortunately learned after the 2017 Met Gala. Redmayne, his wife, Hannah Bagshawe, and fellow actor Tom Sturridge showed up for Rihanna's post-party at New York City's 1OAK. Security turned the crew away not once, but twice, as they repeatedly tried to enter the bash. Apparently, the trio simply wasn't allowed due to capacity issues, so looks like there's no bad blood there.
6. "Naked" certainly wasn't the theme at the 2017 gala, but that didn't stop Russian artist Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich from crashing the bash. Pavlov-Andreevich was dropped off on the red carpet, totally naked and encased in a glass box. While he was initially covered by a white sheet, he eventually took it off, giving red carpet–goers quite an eyeful. Eyewitnesses said he was dropped off at a restricted area in an unmarked vehicle. When police approached Pavlov-Andreevich, he refused to get out, leaving firefighters to cut open the box. Pavlov-Andreevich was immediately arrested on charges of public lewdness, obstructing governmental administration, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct.
7. After the 2016 Met Gala, Demi Lovato said they had such a terrible time that they would likely never attend the event again. It all started when Lovato arrived on the red carpet in a Moschino dress designed by Jeremy Scott. Scott had also dressed Nicki Minaj that night, so the trio posed for a few photos together. Minaj posted one of the photos to her Instagram and tagged Scott, but not Lovato. Lovato commented on the photo with a laughing emoji, then posted a photo of Minaj shooting Lovato major side-eye with the caption, "This picture pretty much summed up my first and probably last met 😂😂😂 #cool #sofuckingawkward #notforme." Both Lovato and Minaj have since deleted the photos.
In 2018, Lovato reflected on their Met experience to Billboard. "This one celebrity was a complete bitch and was miserable to be around," they said. "It was very cliquey. I remember being so uncomfortable that I wanted to drink." In fact, Lovato dipped out of the gala early to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting: "I changed my clothes, but I still had my diamonds on — millions of dollars of diamonds on in an AA meeting. And I related more to the homeless people in that meeting who struggled with the same struggles that I deal with than the people at the Met Gala."
8. Quite a few stars missed the mark with their outfits for the 2015 Met Gala, which was themed "China: Through the Looking Glass." Several celebs came under fire for their outfits, which some said promoted racial stereotypes. Sarah Jessica Parker's custom Philip Treacy dragon headdress was called out for playing into a "dragon lady" stereotype that sexualized and villainized Chinese women. Other celebs who faced criticism for their outfits included Karolína Kurková and her red satin gown; Dakota Johnson, who wore a purse depicting a Chinese woman; and Lady Gaga, who wore a Japanese kimono to a Chinese-themed event.
9. If there's one takeaway about Anna Wintour, it's that she's incredibly particular about the rules at the Met Gala. After the 2014 bash, Wintour was so annoyed by all of the cellphones that she vowed to ban technology at the 2015 gala. Part of the reason for the ban was the sheer number of selfies posted to social media from the exclusive event (which costs upward of $30,000 per ticket!). The official statement said that the ban was to “ensure the guests’ security and enjoyment of the event," but others thought that Wintour implemented the ban because she thought the selfies and drunken videos celebrities posted from the event tarnished the event's overall feel.
10. And if you ever want to be invited to the Met Gala, then don't cross Wintour. Both Tim Gunn and Rachel Zoe found themselves in hot water after dissing her. On a 2016 episode of Fashion Police, Gunn said he believed he was banned from the gala after saying that the most outrageous thing he had ever seen at a fashion event was "watching Anna Wintour being carried down five flights of stairs by two bodyguards — two big hulking men — from a fashion show. All hell broke loose. It was insane. We’ve had an open war ever since." Meanwhile, Zoe was supposedly removed from the invite list after telling the New York Times that people believed she was more influential than Wintour, saying that her work as a stylist was more important for someone's career than being featured in Vogue.
Although Zoe and Gunn shaded Wintour, she said there is only one person who is permanently banned from the Met Gala. During a game of Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts on The Late Late Show With James Corden, Wintour said that Donald Trump is the one person who will never receive an invite to the exclusive event.
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11. And finally, since the theme of the 1999 Met Gala was "Rock Style," it was only fitting that Liv Tyler, daughter of Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler, and Stella McCartney, daughter of the Beatles' Paul McCartney, attended the bash together. McCartney, who is a fashion designer, decided to DIY the duo's looks and took plain, white Hanes tank tops and wrote "Rock Royalty" on them. When the pair arrived on the red carpet, they were horrified to find that they had seriously misunderstood the dress code. While it was seen as a faux pas at the time, McCartney later told Vogue that she loved the outfits. “In this day and age, people would really plan it and overthink it intentionally to get attention in the media,” she said. “And we really didn’t, and that is what is so lovely about it.”
