The Met Gala may seem like the ultimate party — but some stars would disagree.
With phones off-limits and social media largely kept at bay, what actually happens inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual fundraiser remains mostly under wraps. While plenty of attendees rave about the Met Gala, others’ reviews are far less glowing.
In May 2013, Gwyneth Paltrow told USA Today that the event “was so un-fun,” adding, “It was boiling. It was too crowded. I did not enjoy it at all.” Then, in August 2016, Amy Schumer confessed to Howard Stern that fashion’s biggest night “felt like a punishment.”
Here are 10 stars who gave the Met Gala a bad review.
01 of 10
Ashley Park
Ashley Park arriving at the Met Gala in N.Y.C. on May 1, 2023
Credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty
Ashley Park’s first two Met Gala appearances came with a few bumps in the road.
The Emily in Paris star made her Met Gala debut in 2022, wearing a hot-pink corset and train and a black-and-white ostrich-feather skirt by Prabal Gurung — while powering through being under the weather.
“I had a really bad sinus cold,” Park told PEOPLE in April 2025. “So, I think I was on like every over-the-counter medication that you could be on. I was on like eight Advil, like four times.”
In 2023, she returned to the Met steps in a custom Michael Kors Collection mesh gown — only to have her red carpet photo opportunity be hilariously hijacked by Jared Leto dressed as Karl Lagerfeld’s cat, Choupette.
“Jared Leto and his cat outfit, like, was a torment to me,” she said. “Like, I have no photos from that, from those stairs without Jared Leto revealing himself as a cat … I was like, ‘Please let me just get one good picture for [Michael Kors].’ “
02 of 10
Amy Schumer
Amy Schumer poses for the cameras during the Met Gala in N.Y.C. on May 2, 2016
Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage
In an August 2016 interview on The Howard Stern Show, Schumer admitted that she hated attending the Met Gala.
“It’s people doing an impression of having a conversation … I don’t like the farce,” Schumer said. “We’re dressed up like a bunch of f—ing assholes. I got to meet Beyoncé, and she was like, ‘Is this your first Met Gala?’ And I was like, ‘It’s my last.’ “
However, the comedian returned to the Met Gala in 2017 and 2022.
03 of 10
SZA
SZA poses on the Met Gala carpet in N.Y.C. on May 2, 2022
Credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
SZA went to the 2022 Met Gala with high hopes but “snuck out the back” shortly after walking the red carpet because her anxiety made it impossible for her to enjoy the event.
“I hated my outfit. That was another mental health thing,” she said in a May 2022 interview with Finish Line Women’s Community Voices series. “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.’ “
In the end, “I just tiptoed a couple blocks and caught a yellow cab back to my hotel because I was just overwhelmed.”
04 of 10
Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish poses atop the Met Gala stairs in N.Y.C. on Sept. 13, 2021
Credit: Kevin Mazur/MG21/Getty
Billie Eilish didn’t hate the Met Gala, exactly (as one of the 2021 co-chairs, she declared it “amazing” and “beautiful in there”), but she was candid about how awkward it is once you get past the photographers.
“The main thing that night made me think or feel was how famous people are just literally nobodies. Just randos, and it’s so weird,” Eilish said during a December 2021 appearance on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show. “I was like, ‘Wow, all these people are just somebody that’s in class with you,’ and you think this person’s kinda annoying, you really like this person, you get along with this person, and everybody’s just, like, embarrassed and insecure about what they’re doing and saying.”
05 of 10
Quannah Chasinghorse
Quannah Chasinghorse attends the Met Gala in N.Y.C. on Sept. 13, 2021
Credit: Taylor Hill/WireImage
Quannah Chasinghorse — an Indigenous model and climate change activist, whose heritage is Han Gwich’in and Oglala Lakota — felt like an outsider when she attended the Met Gala for the first time in 2021.
“I remember standing there and looking at everyone and feeling so alone. Like, really, really lonely,” she told Business Insider in November 2021. “No one knew me. No one cared to ask. People are there for themselves, and it shows.”
However, she decided to return to the event in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
06 of 10
Lourdes Leon
Lourdes Leon arrives at the Met Gala in N.Y.C. on Sept. 13, 2021
Credit: Getty
Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes Leon, said she felt similarly outcast during her inaugural appearance at the fancy fête in 2021, despite being “grateful” for the invitation.
“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 f—ing know them,” she told Interview magazine in October 2021. “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 f— to talk to. I felt so awkward that I literally called my boyfriend [Jonathan Puglia] in the middle of it.”
07 of 10
Ben Platt
Ben Platt poses for the photographers at the Met Gala in N.Y.C. on Sept. 13, 2021
Credit: Mike Coppola/Getty
Ben Platt felt so awkward his first time attending, in 2017, that he took off before the night was over.
“You’re not allowed to bring a plus one — so the first time I went, I did a lap around the cocktails and tried to find somebody 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’, ” he said during a September 2021 appearance on The Jess Cagle Show.
Platt returned in 2021 knowing a few “familiar faces” that made it feel “less scary” and “pretty fun,” and in 2024, he was able to walk the Met Gala carpet with his now-husband, Noah Galvin.
08 of 10
Zayn Malik
Zayn Malik and Gigi Hadid smile on the Met Gala carpet in N.Y.C. on May 2, 2016
Credit: George Pimentel/WireImage
In his June 2018 cover story with GQ, Zayn Malik (here with then-girlfriend Gigi Hadid in 2016) explained why he would rather stay at home than participate in fashion’s biggest night.
“The Met Gala is not necessarily anything that I ever knew about or was about,” he said. “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.”
09 of 10
Tina Fey
Tina Fey and Jeff Richmond smile for photographers at the Met Gala in N.Y.C. May 3, 2010
Credit: Matt Baron/BEI/REX/Shutterstock
During a 2010 interview with former Late Show host David Letterman, Tina Fey talked about her Met Gala experience and why she would never go again.
“I have gone to it once, and it is such a jerk parade,” the star said while laughing along with the audience. “Clearly, I’ll never go again, but you go, and it’s this beautiful space, and it’s just every jerk from every walk of life is there wearing some stupid thing … You walk up these huge steps … and I went, and I dragged my husband [Jeff Richmond] along with me too, which I’m still in trouble for.”
10 of 10
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow walks up the Met Gala steps in N.Y.C. on May 6, 2013
Credit: Rabbani and Solimene Photography/WireImage
Paltrow has had a love-hate relationship with the event. She was particularly turned off in 2013 when she told USA Today that she was “never going again.”
Paltrow must have had a change of heart when she decided to go again in 2017, wearing a pale pink sequin, one-shoulder Calvin Klein dress, paired with $2.5 million Harry Winston diamond earrings. She returned in 2019, too.
Read the original article on People