31 Outrageous Celebrity Moments That Defined The Met Gala

The first Monday in May is here, which means some of the most prolific A-listers in the world will be getting for the red carpet at the annual Met Ball.

Originally conceived as a fundraising gala, aiming to benefit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York’s Costume Institute, most of us now associate the Met Gala with its red carpet, where guests like Rihanna, Zendaya, Kim Kardashian and Madonna can all be seen serving up some jaw-dropping fashion moments.

But it’s not just the red carpet fashion that gets us talking at the Met Gala every year.

Across the decades, the event has generated countless headlines thanks to bust-ups, A-list incidents and attention-grabbing stunts.

To get us in the mood for this year’s event, here are 31 of those moments that have gone on to define the Met Ball…

Lady Gaga certainly knew how to make an entrance with four different outfit changes at the “camp”-themed event in 2019 

And, for that matter, so did Billy Porter

This was the same year when Zendaya’s outfit had a clever reveal of its own thanks to her “fairy godbrother”, stylist Law Roach

Speaking of Zendaya, let’s take a moment to appreciate her homage to Joan Of Arc

After channelling Karl Lagerfeld’s feline pal Choupette in 2023, Doja Cat really stayed in character

The following year, Doja Cat was also a Met Gala scene-stealer with not one, but two intriguing looks

Kim Kardashian sparked weeks’ of discourse when she attended the Met Gala in 2022 sporting an iconic dress once worn by Marilyn Monroe…

...and she did it again in 2024 with this shockingly-cinched outfit

These were very different approaches to her outfit from 2021, which was decidedly more covered up

How could we mention Kim’s past Met Gala looks and not mention this one too?

We kind of still struggle to compute that Elon Musk and Grimes were ever even a thing – but the fact they hard launched their relationship at the Met Ball is something we don’t think we’ll ever wrap our head around

If you thought the “naked dress” trend was a Kim K or Rihanna invention, you need to think waaaaaay further back – to Cher in 1974, to be exact

After making her mark with her signature style of colourfully-dyed hair, oversized hoodies and punk-y jewellery, Billie Eilish showed off a very different side to herself when she co-hosted the event in 2021

When it comes to star guests, they probably don’t come much bigger than Princess Diana, who attended the Met Ball in 1996, a year before her untimely death

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raised eyebrows (and, apparently, faced an investigation) for this ensemble in 2023

Sarah Paulson clocking Madonna on the red carpet was an extremely relatable moment

Madonna herself has a fair few iconic Met moments, not least when she took inspiration from Bettie Page at the Punk-themed event in 2013...

...when she claimed her risqué outfit wasn’t even allowed to attend the event (‘What i wanted to wear to the Met Ball but Anna said ‘Not this year!‘, she wrote on Instagram claiming she decided to ‘work on music instead’)...

...or when she and Lady Gaga buried the hatchet (somewhat) at a Met Ball after-party, following years of public feuding, in 2015

Sadly not every A-list feud gets resolved under the watchful eye of Anna Wintour, as Cardi B and Nicki Minaj proved when they briefly tried to clear the air at the 2018 event

And speaking of Cardi B – special mention must go to this ensemble from 2019

In 2017, Jaden Smith made a big entrance holding his own recently-shorn hair

Demi Lovato made it clear they’d never return to the Met Ball after one unnamed “complete bitch” the singer so uncomfortable that they almost broke their sobriety (Demi headed straight to an AA meeting after the event, apparently still wearing their Met Gala diamonds)

Meanwhile, Lena Dunham also faced a huge backlash online when she claimed NFL player Odell Beckham Jr had essentially ignored her at the event (where they had been seated on the same table) as he didn’t “want to fuck” her. She later apologised for ‘projecting [her] insecurities’ and making ‘totally narcissistic assumptions about what he was thinking’)

A host of celebs from Courtney Love and Dakota Johnson to Marc Jacobs and Rami Malek all faced controversy in 2017 when they were seen sparking up cigarettes in the toilets of the Met Gala

And no Met Ball retrospective could possibly be complete without Rihanna, undoubtedly the event’s queen, whether she’s playing with androgyny…

…sporting the most-memed dress in Met Ball history…

…channelling the head of the Catholic church…

…or showing up ‘fashionably late’ in sunglasses that we’re still coveting a year later

Speaking of Rihanna (and shades)… who could forget when she threw some shade in the direction of her fellow guests after they failed to live up to the Comme Des Garçons theme in 2017?

And finally. More than a decade has passed… how do we still not know what happened in that after-party elevator?!