A New York Met (not Juan Soto) Made People Mad

Yesterday’s Met Gala in Manhattan delivered its usual stream of opulence, beauty, and outfits you couldn’t wear to an office without getting a call from HR. While the gala is no stranger to protests, this year’s “Fashion is Art” themed event drew more ire than usual due to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, serving as lead sponsors and honorary chairs.

How much ire? An activist group called Everyone Hates Elon (the billionaire Musk, not the college in North Carolina) called for a boycott, placed ~300 bottles of fake urine inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday in a nod to reported conditions for Amazon workers, and projected anti-Bezos messages nearby on Sunday.

Critics questioned why the $100,000-ticket fundraiser’s longtime organizer Anna Wintour allowed the world’s fourth-richest man to gala-wash his reputation after…

• Mass layoffs at the Washington Post, which he owns.
• A growing perception that he and his fellow billionaires are not paying their fair share of taxes.
• Amazon donated to President Trump’s inauguration fund and spent $50 million on a Melania Trump documentary that got criticized as propaganda.

RSVP no: Amid the hubbub, previous attendees Zendaya and Bella Hadid opted to stay home. New York City Mayor and Carhartt enthusiast Zohran Mamdani also spent the evening in sweats and a T-shirt, saying he preferred to focus on “affordability” in a city where one in four residents live in poverty. But plenty of stars from Rihanna to Heidi Klum strutted their stuff on the red carpet. And even fellow tech titan Mark Zuckerberg showed up (but skipped the walk up the iconic steps).

Wear the story ends: To see all the looks that cost more than your yearly rent, click here.—DL