The first Monday in May has come and gone. The looks have been documented. The hot takes have been filed. And now that the dust has settled on the pink carpet—yes, pink, not the usual cream—it is time to talk about what actually happened.
Because plenty happened. And not all of it was good.
Between the Bezos backlash, the “Grim Geisha” sightings, and at least one designer sending a model down the carpet in what looked like a mall run, the 2026 Met Gala was a lesson on how to make expensive mistakes.
Here is everything that went wrong.
- The Bezos Backlash
Let us start with the elephant in the room. Or rather, the billionaire in the room.
This year’s Met Gala was sponsored by Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who served as honorary co-chairs. The response? Protests across New York City. Activists projected a film of a 72-year-old Amazon worker onto the building where the Bezoses’ $120-million penthouse resides. Another demonstration highlighted garment workers in New York who are underpaid and largely ignored by the fashion industry.
Culture critic Joan Summers summed it up: “The carpet has increasingly ramped up in visibility, and as it has increased, so have the economic disparities that it represents for so many people.”
The backlash was so intense that some celebrities reportedly stayed away. Zendaya, a Met Gala regular for seven consecutive years, was notably absent. Meryl Streep, who had just finished promoting “The Devil Wears Prada 2” with Anna Wintour herself, also skipped the event. While their teams cited scheduling conflicts, the timing felt pointed.
As one critic put it, “What the Bezoses have proven by buying their way into the Met Gala is that art has not been a place of rebellion for a very, very long time.”
- The Chanel Jeans Incident
You cannot talk about Met Gala fails without discussing Chanel’s decision to send Indian model and brand ambassador Bhavita Mendava to the carpet in what looked like… jeans.
Sheer top. White tank underneath. Classic blue jeans. White heels. Minimal jewelry. This was the outfit.
Meanwhile, her fellow Chanel ambassadors—Jennie, Margot Robbie, Lily-Rose Depp, and Anna Wintour herself—wore luxurious evening gowns. Awar Odhiang, another Chanel model of comparable fame, stood beside her in a hand-beaded fringe dress.
The internet was not kind.
“Why did they send Bhavitha to the Met Gala in jeans?? This feels like a microaggression,” one X user wrote.
Another added: “Every other ambassador is in custom couture, and she’s in a mall outfit? It feels a bit racist.”
Chanel defended the look, claiming it recreated what Mendava wore the day she was discovered on a New York subway. A personal origin story reframed as couture. The explanation did not land. Diet Prada and other fashion watchdogs called it “tokenising”.
- The ‘Grim Geisha’ and Other Halloween Moments
Sam Smith arrived looking like they had just stepped out of a horror film. Melissa Rivers, the “Fashion Police” alum, dubbed them the “Grim Geisha.” Her review? “If you saw that sitting at the end of your bed, you’d be like, ‘Wow, the Grim Reaper seems to be really well dressed this year.'”
Heidi Klum, who never misses a chance to dress up, showed up as a marble statue. Melissa’s take: “You know how they say Christmas in July? Yeah, this was Halloween in May.”
Katy Perry wore a mask that covered her entire face. One meme summed it up: “Me when my social battery runs out.”
And then there was Teyana Taylor. Everyone was raving about her look. Melissa saw something else: “All I saw was gay Cousin Itt.”
- Bad Bunny’s Senior Citizen Cosplay
Bad Bunny arrived looking like he had aged 50 years. White hair. Wrinkles. A cane. He joked on the red carpet that it “took 53 years” to create the look.
The intention, according to a press release, was to respond to one of the sections in the “Costume Art” exhibit called “The Aging Body.” Bad Bunny and his prosthetic makeup artist closely collaborated on how the passage of time might actually affect his face, neck, and hands.
Conceptually interesting? Maybe. Did it work? The confused reactions on social media suggested otherwise. One critic noted that even for a run-of-the-mill night out, the styling appeared more mismatched than groundbreaking.
- The Nipple Epidemic
Kylie Jenner and Kendall Jenner both walked the carpet with dresses featuring exposed nipples. Kylie’s molded bodysuit included them deliberately. Kendall’s dress had a “boob part falling open with another nipple”.
The bleached brows—another unifying trend of the night—did not help. Kylie’s look was praised as artistic. Kendall’s was called amazing. But the overall effect was a family that looked like they coordinated their areolas before leaving the house.
- The Dress That Looked Like an Intestine
Cardi B wore what Melissa Rivers described as “a Marc Jacobs intestine.” Her review was mercifully short: “Boy, it just was unattractive.”
No further commentary needed.
Why It All Mattered
The Met Gala is supposed to be fashion’s biggest night. It is supposed to celebrate creativity, art, and the human form dressed in its most spectacular version. But this year, the controversies overshadowed the clothes. The Bezos backlash made the event feel out of touch. The misses—from jeans on the carpet to questionable prosthetics—made it feel unserious.
As one culture critic put it, the gala “bursts the notion that we still convince ourselves of: that art in this moment is a place of protest, a place of rebellion. No, the darkness is everywhere, and this is a great example of that.”
The Met Gala will return next year. The carpet will be rolled out again, and the celebrities will show up. But the 2026 edition will be remembered as the year everything went wrong—and the memes were, frankly, better than the outfits.
