This article is part of <\/span><\/i>Upstream,<\/span><\/i><\/a> The Daily Wire\u2019s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories \u2014 from our featured writers to you.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Actress Sarah Paulson stepped<\/a> onto the Met Gala carpet on the traditional <\/span>first Monday of May<\/span> wearing an oversized U.S. dollar eye mask with holes poked into it so she could see if we got her tone-deaf smoke signal. As cult-favorite designer Mati\u00e8res F\u00e9cales described it on <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/a>: \u201cShe is wearing the \u2018Blinded by Money\u2019 leather mask and the Destroyed Tulle Debutante Ballgown \u2026 A reflection of the greed and corruption that comes with extreme power.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n So, whose greed and corrupt power was being reflected? Paulson\u2019s? Was she blinded by her own oversized dollar? Let\u2019s just say, the message didn\u2019t quite have the intended effect.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe only way to deliver this statement earnestly would be by not going,\u201d posted one <\/span>commenter<\/span><\/a>\u00a0about Paulson\u2019s rebellion against an event she probably had marked on her calendar for a year and paid <\/span>$100,000<\/span><\/a> to attend.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis is literally the Capitol from \u2018The Hunger Games,\u2019\u201d posted one <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/a> user, with others suggesting a guillotine might have added that special something.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Angela Weiss \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Paulson wasn\u2019t the richest person in the room. (That was probably honorary chairman <\/span>Jeff Bezos<\/span><\/a>, who donated $10 million to the cause from his <\/span>$282 billion<\/span><\/a> coffers.) Maybe the actor was just throwing a tantrum about her own measly <\/span>$12 million<\/span><\/a> net worth. Showing up in an $8,000 look from a designer whose name translates to \u201cfecal matter\u201d sure set the tone for the rest of the night, as <\/span>mati\u00e8re f\u00e9cale<\/span><\/a> hit the fan in style.<\/span><\/p>\n With a few friends or a corporate card, you could reserve a table for <\/span>$350,000<\/span><\/a>. Maybe fashion houses used to pick up that kind of tab during the Gala\u2019s golden era, but in 2026, with Amazon, Spotify, Meta, OpenAI, and Snapchat shelling out for the best seats, the Met Gala bested last year\u2019s $31 million haul, raking in a record <\/span>$42 million<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Clearly, <\/span>bottles of fake \u201curine\u201d<\/span><\/a> hidden inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art ahead of the event, alerting Met staffers to the alleged working conditions of Amazon delivery drivers, where workers are forced to use empty water bottles in lieu of breaks, did nothing to sway revelers.<\/span><\/p>\n As stunt perpetrator Everyone Hates Elon posted to <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/a>, \u201cJeff Bezos\u2019 company Amazon is literally being sued for forcing workers to urinate in bottles. Amazon avoids MILLIONS in tax and Bezos is one of the world\u2019s richest men. The Met Museum is taking the P*SS by having Jeff honored as their Gala host.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Moving on from bathroom topics, the dress code for the night was \u201cFashion As Art,\u201d which was interpreted like a game of telephone where nothing made sense by the end. Some seemingly tried to pull off tributes to <\/span>actual works<\/span><\/a> of fine art (Apologies to Georges Seurat, Jackson Pollock, Gustav Klimt, et al.), but others took inspiration from left field.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Bad Bunny<\/span><\/a> transformed into a wrinkly, sun-spotted elderly man with a cane. <\/span>Cardi B<\/span><\/a> arrived in an awkwardly lumpy Marc Jacobs look; she should probably get checked out by a doctor. <\/span>Lena Dunham<\/span><\/a> looked as \u201c<\/span>Famesick<\/span>\u201d as her latest memoir in blood-red, feathered <\/span>Valentino<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Simulated nudity was \u201cart\u201d for everyone from<\/span> Kendall<\/span><\/a> and Kylie Jenner, whose matching bodices boasted prosthetic nipples, to <\/span>Kim Kardashian<\/span><\/a> in an orange fembot look and Hailey Bieber with a gilded torso. Naked-look dresses were strategically worn by Gigi Hadid, Zo\u00eb Kravitz, and Irina Shayk. Celebrated trans model Alex Consani just showed his actual nipples in a see-through corset.<\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t forget about the alleged abusers flitting about. Katy Perry may have been dressed like she\u2019s qualifying in astronaut fencing for the next Olympics, but her all-white <\/span>Stella McCartney<\/span><\/a> was stained by recent <\/span>assault accusations by Ruby Rose<\/span><\/a>. All of us rolled our eyes at <\/span>Blake Lively<\/span><\/a> showing up in frothy sherbet Versace without a care in the world \u2014 the same day she settled her attempted two-year-long legal takedown of Justin Baldoni.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Per Met Gala rules, <\/span>guests must be 18<\/span><\/a> to walk the carpet. You could frame Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s 14-year-old daughter Blue Ivy and Nicole Kidman\u2019s 17-year-old daughter Sunday Rose tagging along with their moms like a dress-up version of Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. But just like they say, \u201c<\/span>nothing good happens after 2 a.m.<\/span><\/a>,\u201d nothing good happens when you\u2019re hanging around <\/span>Sam Smith<\/span><\/a> looking like \u201c<\/span>something unholy<\/span><\/a>\u201d in Christian Cowan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If you ignored all of the guests, you might be able to enjoy Broadway star Joshua Henry\u2019s joyful show-opening performance of Whitney Houston\u2019s \u201c<\/span>I Wanna Dance With Somebody<\/span><\/a>.\u201d (Look away from <\/span>Anna Wintour clapping to her own beat<\/span><\/a> like an off-balance flamingo in sunglasses.)<\/span><\/p>\n To shed some light on the ballooning opulence of the most elite costume party you\u2019ve never been invited to, the first-ever Met Gala in <\/span>1948 cost just $50<\/span><\/a> per ticket and was meant to raise funds for the Costume Institute\u2019s latest annual exhibit. Today, the Gala remains the museum\u2019s <\/span>main cash cow<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n But with all the fanfare outside the gallery walls, you might not even realize what treasures await a museumgoer once he walks through the door. Starting May 10, you\u2019re invited to look past the Ozempic waifs of the Gala and feast your eyes upon the \u201cCostume Art\u201d exhibit designed to \u201c<\/span>reclaim the body<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n If, as celebrity gossip journalist Rob Shuter alleges, the jet set didn\u2019t zip out the back door immediately after getting that red-carpet shot<\/span>, fame-starved glitterati could peruse a collection of fashion for \u201c<\/span>the corpulent body. The disabled body. The pregnant body. The aging body<\/span><\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>You, too, can go look at a high-end designer\u2019s \u201cbody-positive\u201d idea of yourself for <\/span>$30<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n If the museum has even a shred of artistic sensibility left in its creative department, there will be souvenir keychain bottles of yellow liquid labeled \u201cMet Gala \u201926\u201d available in the gift shop for $99 \u2014 a smug shout-out to us 99%.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As <\/span>Chloe Malle<\/span><\/a> finds her footing as Vogue\u2019s new head of editorial, and the Met Gala gets \u201cBezos-ed,\u201d we wonder how many years this bloated behemoth has left. Should we humanely put her out to pasture, or pull the plug on fashion\u2019s hottest mess?<\/span><\/p>\n Livestream co-host and model <\/span>Cara Delevingne<\/span><\/a> remarked, \u201cHoly moly, what a show. Aren\u2019t we lucky to witness that?\u201d Lucky<\/em> isn\u2019t the word I would choose.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"US](\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2274057518-864x576.jpg\")
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