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Zendaya and Meryl Streep are reportedly among the A-listers to skip this year’s Met Gala — set to take place Monday (May 4).
The news comes amid calls for celebrities to boycott the event over the involvement of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez. The couple — who married last year in a multimillion-dollar, star-studded ceremony in Venice — have been named lead donors and honorary co-chairs of this year’s Met Gala.
Elle reported Friday that Zendaya will miss the New York City ceremony to take a break from the spotlight after doing two near-simultaneous press tours for The Drama and Euphoria season three.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail reported this week that Meryl Streep was rumored to have turned down a co-chair role at the Met Gala because of Bezos and Sanchez’s involvement.
Streep can currently be seen playing Miranda Priestly — a character inspired by longtime Met Gala chair and Vogue editor Anna Wintour — in The Devil Wears Prada 2, and appears on the May 2026 Vogue cover.
Zendaya (left) and Meryl Streep (right) are among the A-listers to miss this year’s Met Gala, which is sponsored for the first time by Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos (Getty/PA)
Zendaya is reportedly taking a break from the spotlight after promoting ‘The Drama’ and ‘Euphoria’ season three back-to-back (Reuters)
Her representative told The Independent: “Meryl has been invited to the Met Gala for many years but has never attended. While she appreciates Vogue, Anna, and her incredible imagination and stamina, it has never quite been her scene.”
Nevertheless, Streep’s daughters, Grace and Mamie Gummer, are attending, as are her Devil Wears Prada 2 co-stars Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, according to Page Six Hollywood sources.
The Independent has contacted representatives for Zendaya and Streep for comment.
Zendaya has quickly become one of the belles of the Met Gala, attending seven times since her 2015 debut, co-chairing in 2024, and stealing the show last year in an all-white Louis Vuitton suit.
The sponsorship by Bezos — who recently spent millions on a movie by First Lady Melania Trump via his Amazon MGM film studios — sparked backlash from critics who accused him of buying influence at the prestigious fashion ball.
At various locations near the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, posters have popped up with the words: “Bezos Met Gala: Brought to you by the firm that powers ICE” and “Boycott the Bezos Met Gala.”
The flyer campaign was organized by the British political activist group Everyone Hates Elon, which describes itself as anti-billionaire. The group’s name is inspired by the Tesla tech mogul Elon Musk.
Wintour has attempted to quell the backlash over the couple’s involvement, telling CNN in November: “I think Lauren is going to be a wonderful asset to the museum and to the event. I’m very grateful for her incredible generosity, and she’s a great lover of costume and obviously of fashion, so we’re thrilled she’s part of the night.”
Bezos and Sánchez were named as lead sponsors and honorary co-chairs of the Met Gala in November last year (AFP/Getty)
A flyer campaign in New York City was organized by the British political activist group Everyone Hates Elon to protest Bezos’s sponsorship (Reuters)
The couple’s sponsorship of the Met Gala breaks precedent by having a legacy fashion house as the primary sponsor.
The dress code for the 4 May event is “Costume Art,” which explores the “centrality of the dressed body” through depictions and interpretations of the human form in the Met’s extensive collection.
The dress code is said to encourage guests to think about how they can use their bodies as a blank canvas.
“What connects every curatorial department and what connects every single gallery in the museum is fashion, or the dressed body,” Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge of the Costume Institute, said in a statement.
“It’s the common thread throughout the whole museum, which is really what the initial idea for the exhibition was.”
This year’s co-chairs, who act as honorary hosts for the fundraiser, are Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams. Members of the Gala Host Committee — co-chaired by Anthony Vaccarello and Zoë Kravitz — include singer Sabrina Carpenter, musician Doja Cat, ballerina Misty Copeland, Girls creator Lena Dunham, singer Sam Smith and One Battle After Another actor Teyana Taylor, among others.