From the James Bond franchise to the Met Gala, it seems there is nothing Jeff Bezos cannot buy, though not without public backlash.
The Met Gala is an annual fundraiser for the Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum, relying on donations from attendees and sponsors to preserve fashion and art history. While billionaires and conservatives have sponsored the Met Gala before (e.g., Stephen Schwarzman in 2018), this year not only featured Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, as the official sponsors, but as honorary chairs of the gala itself.
While Schwarzman’s contributions were primarily behind the scenes, and thus easier to ignore, it was impossible to miss Bezos’s involvement, with Sánchez Bezos standing right next to Anna Wintour herself at the opening ceremony, fully centered in this space meant to represent creativity and artistic expression, not corporate greed.
As a result of their prominent role in this year’s gala, calls for a boycott of the event spread online while several New York protesters took it upon themselves to make their voices heard. One group reportedly smuggled hundreds of bottles of fake urine into the museum before the event, in reference to longstanding allegations that Amazon warehouse workers were denied adequate bathroom breaks and forced to relieve themselves in bottles. A group of activists, known as Everyone Hates Elon, put up posters throughout the city and projected interviews with Amazon workers and various critical statements on the Bezoses’ penthouse building.
While the gala itself proceeded as usual with strong attendance, a handful of celebrities and public figures were absent.
Zendaya, who has attended the event seven times and even co-chaired it in 2024, notably declined her invitation to the gala, potentially a quiet statement in itself, though she has made no official statement on the matter.
In a New York Times interview with Cynthia Nixon, she applauded Zohran Mamdani’s absence from the gala, stating: “My hat is off to the mayor for not attending… The Met Gala is now giving Bezos exactly the kind of reputation laundering and cultural rocket fuel he needs to keep destroying America.”
Actress and comedian, Lisa Ann Walter, joined the Labor Is Art protest against the Gala, asking: “How did an event that’s supposed to celebrate creativity, artistry, and fabulousness, in all genders, end up revolving around this Temu Lex Luthor? Who profits off of pushing working people to their very brink.”
According to insiders, all of this backlash reportedly came as a surprise to Anna Wintour. One source claimed that “Anna is genuinely shocked by how hostile this has become… [She] quickly enlisted the help of her top advisers from Vogue and her inner circle for what was described as a ‘crisis-level’ strategy session.”
But the backlash should not have been surprising. The Met Gala is marketed as a celebration of fashion, artistry, and cultural preservation. By placing one of the world’s most controversial billionaires at the center of that celebration, the event exposed a larger issue: cultural institutions should not have to sacrifice their credibility in exchange for financial support. This year’s negative reception reflects that the public is becoming less willing to accept this compromise of values. Hopefully, the backlash will serve as a necessary wake-up call for the events’ organizers and similar institutions that public trust can vanish just as quickly as their donor list grows.
The Queerest 