I’ll be honest with you: I almost didn’t cover the 2026 Met Gala.
Not because the fashion wasn’t giving, because it absolutely was. Everybody at the Met Gala looked incredible. But I sat there watching the red carpet and felt something I couldn’t shake. A kind of split screen in my brain that I couldn’t turn off.
On one side: gowns, jewelry, spectacle, the intersection of Hollywood and high fashion which is indirectly tied to my lane, my coverage, my job.
On the other side: everything else.
The Voting Rights Act being gutted in real time. DEI programs dismantled across the country. Federal layoffs targeting agencies where Black women make up the majority of workers. An estimated 300,000 Black women pushed out of the labor force in a matter of months. Women being arrested for having abortions. LGBTQ rights being systematically erased. Racism loud and unapologetic with the backing and encouragement of the President. ICE raids tearing families apart, parents separated from children, communities living in fear. Kids in cages. A war. Grocery bills that have families choosing between food and rent. Gas prices that make going to work feel like a luxury. An AI revolution reshaping entire industries with no safety net for the people being displaced. The list goes on. A cultural and political overhaul happening so fast that most people haven’t had time to grieve what’s already gone.
And on Monday night, the most famous people in the world put on their most expensive outfits and posed for cameras.
I covered the Met Gala’s red carpet because of its intersection with the entertainment world, the actors, artists, and creators I cover every other week were there. I can’t pretend they don’t exist just because the timing feels off.
But I’m also not going to pretend I felt completely fine about it.
The Divide Is the Story
The Met Gala raised $42 million this year, a record. Individual tickets cost $100,000. Tables started at $350,000. And most celebrities didn’t even pay for themselves, fashion brands bought the seats and brought stars as their guests, essentially turning them into walking advertisements.
This year’s honorary chairs and lead sponsors were Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez Bezos, who reportedly dropped $10 million on the event. Yes, that Jeff Bezos. The same Amazon that has been under fire for warehouse worker conditions, labor violations, and union busting. Outside the Met, protesters held signs that read “Your red carpet is stained with BLOOD.” Across town in the Meatpacking District, a counter-event called the Ball Without Billionaires was happening, a runway show celebrating labor, unions, and the people Amazon’s wealth is built on the backs of.
The resistance was literally outside the door. Inside, everyone was serving looks.
I’m not here to dismiss what the event does. The Costume Institute is legitimate. Fashion as art is real. The museum’s work matters.
But $42 million raised in one night, in this moment, by people who will never have to worry about whether DEI protections exist for them, whether their job gets replaced by an algorithm, whether they can afford groceries this week, that number hits differently right now. Especially when all we’re asking for is a collective use of their voice against a political regime of this detrimental magnitude.
That’s not an indictment of art. That’s just what it feels like to watch.
Our Faves Are Not Living Our Reality
This is the part I keep coming back to.
A lot of the celebrities I genuinely love, people whose work I’ve championed, whose movies I’ve reviewed, whose names I’ve put my credibility behind are deeply disconnected from what the rest of us are living through right now. Not all of them. But enough that it’s impossible to ignore.
I used to be frustrated by celebrity silence. I grew up on Public Enemy and songs like “The Message” were in heavy rotation in my home. I believed artists had a responsibility to say something when it mattered. Then I watched a wave of celebrities finally speak up during the last election and some of them said things that were genuinely harmful.
I recently saw Michael twice and was reminded of what it actually looks like when an artist uses their voice with intention. He used his platform to share a message of peace, to speak against war, to stand for humanity. Not performance. Not clout. Conviction.
And I remembered what an editor told me years ago: not every artist should speak on politics or our plight. Just because someone has a platform doesn’t mean they have wisdom. A microphone is not a conscience.
So I’ve made peace with the fact that I can’t demand everyone become an activist. What I haven’t made peace with is the complete absence. The silence. When the Voting Rights Act is being dismantled. When Black women are being pushed out of the workforce by the hundreds of thousands. When women are being arrested for having abortions. When LGBTQ people are watching their rights disappear. When healthcare is becoming a luxury that people are dying without. When there is a war. When there is a genocide. When entire communities are watching the systems that were supposed to protect them get quietly disassembled while the celebrities we love post their next project and the news cycle moves on like none of it is happening.
What do they got on y’all? For the silence from those with major platforms, who we still openly support.
The younger generation isn’t giving the same passes we used to give. And maybe that’s actually the shift, not waiting for our faves to find their conscience, but pushing past those who choose comfort and wealth over the humanity of others.
The Double Duty Nobody Talks About
Here’s what’s actually hard about my job right now.
I cover entertainment. Film. Television. Culture. That’s what Blex Media is built on and that’s what I’m here to do. But I’m also a person who is paying attention, to the world, to my community, to what’s happening in real time.
And it’s not just the Met Gala. It’s every time I’m about to post a movie announcement and breaking news drops about another right being stripped away. It’s every time I’m writing a review and I stop mid-sentence because something happened that feels like it should take over every platform, every feed, every conversation. It’s the feeling that anything I cover that isn’t the crisis is a distraction from the crisis.
That tension doesn’t go away. If anything it’s getting harder. Because my job is to cover culture, and I genuinely love this work. But I’m also a person paying attention to the world, and some days those two things feel completely incompatible.
I understand the argument that culture matters. That entertainment is education. That representation is resistance. I believe that on most days. But some days I’m just not sure that believing it is enough, or that it lets me off the hook. And I don’t think I should pretend otherwise.
So I show up. I do the work. And I sit with the discomfort of not fully knowing if that’s enough.
And then I sit with something even more uncomfortable: how many of us who are frustrated with the Met Gala still have Amazon Prime? Still shop at stores owned by the ultra rich? Still drive a Tesla, use Twitter, buy from the same systems we say we’re against? Jeff Bezos chaired the very event I covered. I’m not exempt from that irony. It’s a weird place to be, calling out the spectacle while still participating in the machine in other ways. I don’t have a clean answer for that. I just think it’s worth naming.
Maybe that’s not enough. Maybe I’m not ready to be the resistance. I have bills. I have a brand. I have something I’m building here that requires me to show up consistently even when the world makes me want to log off entirely.
But saying nothing is also a choice. And I’d rather cover the Met Gala and tell you exactly how complicated that feels than pretend the split screen isn’t there.
Read the Room, Or At Least Say Something While You’re In It
What I’m asking for isn’t for celebrities to stop attending galas or red carpets or events. I’m asking that while they’re wearing the a year’s worth of rent in a dress or suit, sitting at the table someone else paid $350,000 for, they also say where they stand. Make some noise. Make a fuss. Don’t just strut as if the world outside those doors isn’t on fire. The awareness I’m asking for isn’t complicated, it’s just human.
The red carpet was gorgeous. The world is on fire. And I’m still asking myself if covering it was the right call.
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