13 Celebs Whose Awful Met Gala Experiences Low-Key Make Me Glad I'm Too Irrelevant To Ever Be Invited

For many people, attending the Met Gala would be a dream come true. However, for some who've actually gotten the highly sought-after invite, the experience was surprisingly disappointing.

Here are 13 celebs who shared their bad Met Gala experiences:

1. Tina Fey attended the 2010 Met Gala. Appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman five years later, she said, "It is such a jerk parade. Like, you cannot even...It is so unbelievable. And then, clearly, I'll never go again, but you go, and you go into this beautiful space, and it's just every jerk from every walk of life is there, wearing, like, some stupid thing."

"And you walk up these huge steps, and I went, and I dragged my husband along with me too, which I'm still, uh, in trouble for...We walk down this big, long hallway, and we were walking about 10 feet behind this very famous, famously mean fashion designer...We walked into just...just a fart cloud. This famous man, just the most toxic, toxic gas," she said.

Watch her hilariously recount her horrible night at the Met below, starting at the 1:43 mark:

2. SZA didn't enjoy the 2022 Met Gala because she felt "overwhelmed" and ended up leaving early. She told Finish Line's Community Voices, "I hated my outfit. That was another mental health thing. You want to do your job, you want to show up, and all these people are excited for you to be there, but it's like, 'Damn, I don't feel confident,' or 'I don't feel comfortable,' or it's like, 'Oh, if my dress doesn't fit…,' and then there's all this weird comparison, and it's really unhealthy. And it's like, damn, some people, like Lizzo, can have a really good time regardless of what is happening."

"For me, it's like, I snuck out the back as soon as Lenny Kravitz hit the stage because I was feeling very like, 'Whoa, my anxiety's going crazy.' So much so that I couldn't walk down the main steps to exit. I took a cab. I walked like three city blocks with no shoes on…I just tiptoed a couple blocks and caught a yellow cab back to my hotel because I was just overwhelmed. I had too much anxiety to wait for my cab in front of the crowd and take pictures and all those things. I didn't want to do that. So I was looking like a little dirty Cinderella running away with my shoes," she said.

3. Demi Lovato "had a terrible experience" at the 2016 Met Gala. Two years later, they told Billboard, "This one celebrity was a complete bitch and was miserable to be around. It was very cliquey. I remember being so uncomfortable that I wanted to drink." They texted their manager and then headed to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

"I changed my clothes, but I still had my diamonds on — millions of dollars of diamonds on in an AA meeting. And I related more to the homeless people in that meeting who struggled with the same struggles that I deal with than the people at the Met Gala — fake and sucking the fashion industry's dick," she said.

4. Quannah Chasinghorse told Insider that the 2021 Met Gala was "just such a weird space to be in." She said, "I remember standing there and looking at everyone and feeling so alone. Like, really, really lonely."

"No one knew me. No one cared to ask. People are there for themselves, and it shows," she said.

She also set that her initial excitement at being invited wore off as the night went on because, as one of few Indigenous people in attendance, she felt the  "In America: A Lexicon of Fashion" held a different meaning to her than most of the other attendees.

She said, "No way am I celebrating America. If I were to celebrate anything, it would be my Indigenous roots, my Indigeneity, who I am. Because of what America did to my people, I am proud to be here today."

5. Following the 2013 Met Gala, Gwyneth Paltrow told USA Today, "I'm never going again. It was so un-fun. It was boiling. I did not enjoy it at all."

She also told The Kyle and Jackie O Show, "Do you want me to be honest? It sucked. It seems like it's the best thing in the world, you always think, 'Oh my god, it's gonna be so glamorous and amazing and you're going to see all these people' and then you get there and it's so hot and it's so crowded and everyone's pushing you...I think we're all a bit old to dress up punk [which was the theme]. I just went as kind of normal."

However, she ended up attending the Met Gala two more times – in 2017 and 2019.

6. At the 2006 Met Gala, John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) was reportedly so mad that his assigned seat was at the end of a long table that he stormed out of the ball not once, but twice, and swore at Met staff.

After a while he reportedly sat down, and Anna Wintour herself came over to soothe him.

7. At the 2018 Met Gala, Selena Gomez had an infamous self-tanner mishap. In 2021, she told Vogue, "I was getting ready, and we wanted to add some color. So [I] put on some of this tanning lotion and it looked really beautiful and very even. As the evening kept going on, it was getting a little darker and darker, and I didn't notice it. I'm at the Met Gala — basically one of the most prestigious, beautiful events — and I'm walking, trying to look all beautiful, and I look at a photo of myself when I sit down, and I am completely orange."

She continued, "I was like, 'This is going to be terrible because I'm going to get eaten alive about this.'...I had my security take a video of me because my first reaction was just to get the hell out of there, and so, I'm running to my car. I'm literally just hauling ass to my car and then gonna put it online. I was saying this is my reaction after seeing my Met Gala photos."

8. Jennifer Garner went to the 2007 Met Gala. In 2023, she told Vogue, "I found it a little scary, so I haven’t been back."

9. On Instagram Live, Lizzo described her experience at the 2022 Met Gala. She said, "There's a long fucking line. I'm taking the glamour away from it, but it's true. You've gotta wait. So you're waiting, and that's the hardest part. I was sweating in a big-ass coat; my feet were hurting. I was like, 'Bitch? Can we get some chairs or some drinks or some hors d'oeuvres?'"

She continued, "They were being really stingy with the liquor that night. He was like, 'Red or white wine?' And I was like, 'Tequila! Do you know what I've been through? Do you know how many hours I've been in this corset? How long I've been in these damn shoes? Tequila!'"

She also said the photographers ruined her planned flute performance. She said, "I had this plan to play the flute and do the whole intro [of a classical piece], but I got nervous, and I only played it once because all the photographers were heckling me. They were like, 'You're putting us to sleep with the flute!' I was like, 'Okay?' In my mind, I thought everyone was going to be transfixed. So I only played it once, only the first half of it. Then I posed and got the photos."

10. Zayn Malik attended the 2016 Met Gala with his then-partner, Gigi Hadid. Two years later, he told GQ, "The Met Gala is not necessarily anything that I ever knew about or was about. But my [former] stylist…would say to me, 'This is really good for you to do.' And no matter how strong you are mentally, you can always be swayed to do certain things. Now, it's not something I would go to. I'd rather be sitting at my house, doing something productive, than dressing up in really expensive clothes and being photographed on a red carpet.… To do the self-indulgent Look at me, I'm amazing thing on the red carpet, it's not me."

He also said, "I did go, but I didn't go there to be like, 'Yo, take me serious.' I was taking the piss! I went there as my favorite Mortal Kombat character, Jax.

11. Reflecting on her 2016 Met Gala Experience in her Lenny Letter newsletter, Lena Dunham said, "I was sitting next to Odell Beckham Jr., and it was so amazing because it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards. He was like, 'That's a marshmallow. That's a child. That's a dog.' It wasn't mean — he just seemed confused. The vibe was very much like, 'Do I want to fuck it? Is it wearing a...yep, it's wearing a tuxedo. I'm going to go back to my cellphone.'"

She continued, "It was like we were forced to be together, and he literally was scrolling Instagram rather than have to look at a woman in a bow tie. I was like, 'This should be called the Metropolitan Museum of Getting Rejected by Athletes.'"

Following backlash, Lena apologized to Odell. On Instagram, she said, "I owe Odell Beckham Jr an apology. Despite my moments of bravado, I struggle at industry events (and in life) with the sense that I don't rep a certain standard of beauty and so when I show up to the Met Ball surrounded by models and swan-like actresses it's hard not to feel like a sack of flaming garbage. This felt especially intense with a handsome athlete as my dinner companion and a bunch of women I was sure he'd rather be seated with. But I went ahead and projected these insecurities and made totally narcissistic assumptions about what he was thinking, then presented those assumptions as facts."

She continued, "I feel terrible about it. Because after listening to lots of valid criticism, I see how unfair it is to ascribe misogynistic thoughts to someone I don't know AT ALL. Like, we have never met, I have no idea the kind of day he's having or what his truth is. But most importantly, I would never intentionally contribute to a long and often violent history of the over-sexualization of Black male bodies — as well as false accusations by white women towards Black men. I'm so sorry, particularly to OBJ, who has every right to be on his cellphone. The fact is I don't know about his state of mind (I don't know a lot of things), and I shouldn't have acted like I did."

12. In 2021, Lourdes Leon told Interview Magazine, "Did I have fun at the Met Gala? I'm really grateful to have been able to go. Maybe because it was my first time, but it felt crazy. You're just shoved into a room with all these famous people, and you're supposed to talk to them and be their friend, even though you don't fucking know them. That's not my vibe."

"I'm sure it's fun if you're someone who is friends with a lot of famous people, but I'm not. I didn't know who the fuck to talk to. I felt so awkward that I literally called my boyfriend in the middle of it, but the dinner was fine. I mean, I was sitting with Jeremy O. Harris, who I love, and Irina Shayk, who I love a lot. She's so funny," she said.

13. And finally, after attending the 2021 Met Gala, Ben Platt reflected on his previous experience at the 2017 ball. He told The Jess Cagle Show, "I didn't really know anybody, and so once I got inside, it's a very, kind of, free-for-all. You're not allowed to bring a plus one, pretty much anyone, unless your plus one is also a fancy, fancy Met person. So, the first time I went, I kind of just did a lap around the cocktails and tried to find someone I knew and then failed and sort of left and didn't make it through the event because I was like, 'I don't really have anybody to talk to.'"

"But this time, I had a couple of, like, checkpoints. I had my dear friend Zoey Deutch there, and my costar in Evan Hansen, Amandla Stenberg, and just some familiar faces to make it feel a little less scary," he said.