Beyoncé, Rihanna dazzle at Met Gala 2026 celebrating Costume Art

The Met Gala’s Costume Art theme turned the steps of The Metropolitan Museum of Art into more than a celebrity runway, with Beyoncé’s return after a 10-year absence, Rihanna’s late arrival with A$AP Rocky and a field of stars using clothes to argue for fashion as art, status and cultural power. The 2026 gala took place Monday, May 4, in New York City, and the museum’s livestream began at 5:30 p.m. EDT.

The night was built around the Costume Institute’s new exhibition, Costume Art, which opens to the public May 10 and runs through January 10, 2027. The show will inaugurate the museum’s nearly 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries and feature nearly 400 objects, pairing garments from the Met’s collection with artworks to examine the centrality of the dressed body and the relationship between clothing and the body across Western art from prehistory to the present. The gala’s dress code, Fashion is Art, made that curatorial idea visible in real time.

Beyoncé co-chaired the event with Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour, while Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos served as honorary chairs as lead sponsors. Beyoncé attended with Jay-Z and Blue Ivy, and NBC News described her return as “surreal.” Rihanna also drew attention for arriving late, a customary part of her Met Gala presence, this time alongside A$AP Rocky. Doechii, Heidi Klum, Bad Bunny, Lena Dunham, Angela Bassett, Lauren Sánchez Bezos and Madonna were among the attendees who interpreted the theme through literal references to artworks and historical imagery.

The host committee underscored how far the Met Gala reaches beyond fashion insiders. Sabrina Carpenter, Doja Cat, Gwendoline Christie, Alex Consani, Misty Copeland, Elizabeth Debicki, Paloma Elsesser, LISA, Sam Smith, Teyana Taylor, Lauren Wasser, Anna Weyant, A’ja Wilson, Yseult, Adut Akech, Sinéad Burke, Rebecca Hall, Aimee Mullins, Tschabalala Self, Amy Sherald and Chase Sui Wonders all figured into a roster that blended pop, sport, art and activism. That mix helped make the gala feel less like a private industry party than a national cultural broadcast.

The event’s political undertone was hard to miss. In the run-up to the gala, Bezos and Sánchez’s elevation to honorary-chair status drew backlash, and some New Yorkers and activists called for a boycott. That tension only sharpened the larger question at the center of the evening: whether the Met Gala is simply a spectacle, or a powerful annual mechanism through which museums, luxury brands and pop stars shape what counts as art in public life.