The Met Gala is a disgusting show of superstar extra and has no place in 2026
While the Met Gala helps fund the Met’s vital Costume Institute and preserves fashion history for the public, it has become a grotesque display of elite wealth that feels indefensible in 2026
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos attend the 2026 Met Gala(Image: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)
The Met Gala repulses me. On Monday (May 4), the annual star-studded event showcased fashion’s best work on popular celebrities.
Just like everyone else, I used to be curious about what some famous names wore. I wanted to know who looked the best, who failed to impress on the carpet, and I enjoyed flicking through the endless pictures featuring all the outlandish outfits worn by A-listers. But now, I don’t want to look at it.
I think it’s a gross and disgusting display of wealth, and it’s the single most tone-deaf, unnecessary, Hunger Games-esque event of the year. The Met Gala is a fundraiser for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA.
New York is one of my favourite cities in the world, and I’ve naturally visited the Met. It’s a beautiful museum, packed with extraordinary objects.
Fundraisers and galas for institutions like this don’t surprise me. If anything, they feel inevitable as the arts are chronically underfunded.
The Met Gala, in particular, supports the museum’s Costume Institute which is the only department at the Met required to fund itself. In practical terms, that money helps preserve and care for a collection of more than 33,000 fashion pieces, some dating back to the 1400s, and helps ensure fashion history can be studied and shared with the public rather than vanishing into private collections.
But none of that changes how grotesque the spectacle has become. What began as a fundraiser now reads like a real-world Capitol from The Hunger Games.
It’s taking place in a world that feels, metaphorically and literally, at boiling point. With climate crisis, war, and deepening inequality as the backdrop, the Met Gala isn’t just tone-deaf, it’s obscene.
This year, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez were named honourary co-chairs. Where previous years were sponsored by major fashion houses like Chanel and Gucci, this year’s Met is tied to a company repeatedly criticised over working conditions in its warehouses.
So, while the billionaire strutted his blingy stuff on the red carpet, workers continued to face poor working conditions that have been denounced repeatedly. Activists this year even placed pee bottles around the museum to highlight claims that Amazon workers lack adequate bathroom breaks.
There’s also a problematic political context which makes the Met all the more infuriating. In the US in particular, there’s aggressive immigration enforcement and cost-of-living crisis.
Watching two completely different worlds coexist, side by side, is unsettling, and it becomes harder to accept each year. Even the idea that it’s all “for charity” has limits.
General admission to the Met for visitors outside New York State is still $30 (£22) for adults, $22 (£16) for seniors and $17 (£12) for students. For plenty of people, even cultural access comes with a price tag, which makes the gala’s excess feel even more out of step.
There has to be a better, less vulgar way to fund preservation and public culture than a night of extreme opulence for the ultra-rich. Whatever the gala once was, in 2026 it no longer feels like it has a place.
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.
