If you’re coming down with a case of FOMO because of the 2026 Met Gala, celebrities’ honest takes on their Met Gala experiences might make you feel a little better.
On Monday, May 4, stars from Beyoncé to Sabrina Carpenter will return to the Met steps for this year’s Met Gala, which celebrates a “Fashion is Art” theme. The prestigious event always has an enviable guest list, and making it inside is a luxury reserved only for a few. However, some stars have politely said “thanks, but no thanks” to the Met Gala after hating their time inside the event.
Tina Fey, for example, called the event a total “jerk parade” after attending back in 2010. Safe to say she hasn’t been back since.
For Jennifer Garner, who attended for the first and last time in 2007, the event was “a little scary,” and she’s yet to come back. We get it – we can’t say we wouldn’t be overwhelmed seeing so many celebrities in one room.
While the event’s prestige is certainly true, the night has been much less than a dream for many of our favorite celebrities. In fact, many of them would describe it more as a nightmare than anything else. To see more stars who’ve opened up about not enjoying the glitz and glamour of the Met Gala, scroll below!
Lena Dunham
Image Credit: Theo Wargo/Getty Images
Lena Dunham is on the 2026 Met Gala host committee and has attended the Met Gala a few times, but sitting next to NFL star Odell Beckham Jr. in 2016 was especially telling for her.
“[His] vibe was very much like, ‘Do I want to f— it? Is it wearing a … yep, it’s wearing a tuxedo. I’m going to go back to my cell phone,’” Dunham said of Beckham Jr. in Lenny Letter. “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.’”
After backlash, however, the Girls creator apologized on Instagram. “I went ahead and projected these insecurities and made totally narcissistic assumptions about what he was thinking, then presented those assumptions as facts,” she wrote, per People. “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.”
Dunham continued to attend the Gala in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Gwyneth Paltrow
Image Credit: Alberto Rodriguez/Variety via Getty Images
Gwyneth Paltrow also had some not-so-nice things to say about the Met Gala.
“It sucked,” she told an Australian radio show in 2013, via Us Weekly. Paltrow had previously attended the Gala many times, including 2011, 2012 and 2013.
“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,” she said. Since then, she’s also attended the 2017 and 2019 galas.
Tina Fey
Image Credit: Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images
Tina Fey attended the Met Gala in 2010 but is still reeling from her terrible time.
“I have gone to it once and it is such a jerk parade,” the star Late Show host David Letterman in 2010, per People. “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.”
Fey, who took her husband Jeff Richmond to the event, said he felt equally as out of place. “I went and I dragged my husband along with me too, which I’m still in trouble for,” she said.
Billie Eilish
Image Credit: Christopher Polk/WWD via Getty Images
Billie Eilish attended her first-ever Met Gala 2021, and wasn’t afraid to open up about how it all went down.
“It’s nuts. It’s famous people famous people-ing. That’s what it is,” she said on SiriusXM’s The Howard Stern Show, per People.
“You know what, 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 added.
For the “Bad Guy” singer, the experience reminded her of high school.
“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,” Eilish continued.
Despite the experience, she’s returned to the star-studded event many times since.
Jennifer Aniston
Image Credit: Savion Washington/Variety
Jennifer Aniston has actually never attended the Met Gala, but she has insider knowledge on events like these, and she assures fans they’re not missing out on anything.
“Yes, I have [been invited], but I don’t go. It overwhelms me,” she told Glamour in September 2025.
“I’m a ‘jeans and flip-flops and tank top’ kind of girl. I love dressing up too, but for me it’s a mental game of…’Let’s get dressed up, put on a fancy dress, makeup, get your hair all ‘purdy’ and go sit in a big room with your peers.’ [And yes,] everyone’s there to celebrate each other and have some fun, but I get nervous,” she said.
Jennifer Garner
Image Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Jennifer Garner went to the Met Gala for the first time in 2007, but she’s ready to make that her last one too.
“I went to the Met ball exactly one time,” the actress said in a video for Vogue in December 2023. “I found it a little scary, so I haven’t been back.”
With that said, the 13 Going on 30 star shared fond memories from the night. “I wore that night this magical red Valentino gown,” she remembered. “And I was his date and that was really majestic and special.”
Demi Lovato
Image Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Demi Lovato also had quite a difficult time at the Met Gala.
“I had a terrible experience,” Lovato told Billboard. The singer attended for the first time in 2016. “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.”
Tempted to relapse from her sobriety, Lovato left the event and went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting right after. “I changed my clothes, but I still had my diamonds on — millions of dollars of diamonds on in an AA meeting,” she remembered. “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 d—.”
Zayn Malik
Image Credit: Swan Gallet/WWD via Getty Images
Zayn Malik attended his first and only Met Gala in 2016 with his ex Gigi Hadid.
“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,” Malik told GQ of why he went.
“Now, it’s not something I would go to,” he added. “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.”
SZA
Image Credit: Lexie Moreland for WWD
SZA may be a veteran of red carpets, but the Met Gala was a whole other beast.
In a candid interview with Finish Line Women’s Community Voices, the “Kill Bill” singer opened up about her mental health struggles during her appearance at the 2022 Met Gala.
“I hated my outfit. That was another mental health thing,” she explained, per People. “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.”
Before the night ended, SZA sneaked out the back of the party and ordered a taxi. “I just tiptoed a couple blocks and caught a yellow cab back to my hotel because I was just overwhelmed,” she said. “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.”
Lourdes Leon
Image Credit: Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images
Lourdes Leon has also been candid about her Met Gala debut in 2021.
“Maybe because it was my first time, but it felt crazy,” she told Interview Magazine. “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— 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,” Madonna’s eldest daughter added. “I didn’t know who the f– to talk to. I felt so awkward that I literally called my boyfriend in the middle of it, but the dinner was fine.”
Amy Schumer
Image Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety/Penske Media via Getty Images
Amy Schumer attended the Met Gala in 2016, 2017 and 2022, but she’s spoken her mind about what she disliked about the event.
“It’s people doing an impression of having a conversation,” the Life & Beth star said of the guests in a 2016 interview with Howard Stern, per Yahoo! “I don’t like the farce. We’re dressed up like a bunch of f— a—. I don’t like it. I have no interest in fashion. … I don’t care.”
Ben Platt
Image Credit: Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images
Ben Platt disliked his time in his first Met Gala in 2017 because of one major reason: not being able to bring a plus one.
“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 told The Jess Cagle Show, per People.
Platt since attended the 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Graydon Carter
Image Credit: MJ Photos/Variety
Former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter spoke candidly about his experience at the Met Gala in his memoir, When the Going Was Good.
“[It] wasn’t my thing,” he said, per the New York Times. “I mean, Halloween-type costumes. They might as well come dressed as SpongeBob.”
He then added that the Greenwich Village Halloween parade “was classier, a better class of people.”
“In the old days, you’d go and you’d sit beside an architect or a writer, and now it’s all influencers and Kardashians,” he wrote.
Quannah Chasinghorse
Image Credit: Gilbert Flores for Variety
Indigenous model Quannah Chasinghorse first attended the Met Gala in 2021, and it was decidedly not her favorite time.
“It was just such a weird space to be in,” Chasinghorse told Business Insider. “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,” she remembered. “People are there for themselves and it shows.”
She’s since returned to the Met Gala in the following years.