The Met Gala is back. It’s been running since 1948, and it happens every first Monday in May. This year’s theme is Superfine: Tailoring Black Style. Celebs headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to show off their looks.
It started as a fundraiser, but now it’s mostly about the glam and buzz. Stars go to wild lengths to land on those best-dressed lists.
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From extreme diets to fast surgeries and sneaky meds, here’s a peek at what some celebs actually go through just to show up looking flawless.
Celebrities turn to drugs just to stay calm and look flawless
Getting a prescription usually isn’t easy. You need a real medical reason, and in the UK you might be stuck waiting on the NHS. In the U.S., people can’t even afford some meds.
But that’s not how it works for Met Gala celebs. Dr. Amanda Khan told The Cut she gives her famous clients a certain drug just to calm them down and make them look good, even though it’s been linked to some deaths.
“My best-kept Met Gala secret is a small dose of a blood-pressure medication called propranolol, which is a beta blocker that can help with stage fright or performance anxiety. It helps people look calm and collected and reduces sweating and flushing on the carpet,” she said.
VIP pharmacy support keeps stars medicated
In 2024, one of Dr. Khan’s patients forgot her meds right before the event. Her team panicked.
Luckily, Khan had a contact, a “VIP pharmacist,” who came through fast.
“I gave him a call, and within minutes he had everything prepared, including navigating the medications through the guardrails to hand it off to her team,” she said.
Crash dieting is the secret behind red carpet transformations
Celebs usually look way slimmer by Met Gala night. Most keep quiet about how, but not Kim Kardashian.
She told everyone how she squeezed into that iconic Marilyn Monroe dress. She cried when it didn’t fit. Then, just days before the Gala, she started an extreme diet.
She dropped 16 pounds in three weeks.
Trainers and nutritionists back up risky diet choices
She told Vogue she cut out carbs and sugar, wore a sauna suit twice daily, and ran a ton on the treadmill.
Her trainer Don-A-Matrix told TMZ, “Not at all. Not from my end from what I saw. We were working out sometimes twice a day. At times, she wouldn’t eat as much, but the second thing is she really put the work in.” He added, “it’s possible to lose 20 pounds in a healthy way.”
People slammed her for it. She told Allure, “If I was starving and doing it really unhealthy, I would say that, of course, that’s not a good message. But I had a nutritionist, I had a trainer. I have never drunk more water in my life.”
Painful corsets are used to sculpt red carpet bodies
When dieting doesn’t cut it, some turn to shapewear. Kim wore corsets that looked stunning but felt awful.
They can mess with your organs if worn wrong. She trained herself to breathe in them, but still, they left bruises.
Corset breathing lessons don’t make the pain go away
In 2019, she wore a Thierry Mugler dress and said on Instagram she took “corset breathing lessons from none other than Mr. Pearl.”
But she told the Wall Street Journal, “I have never felt pain like that in my life. I’ll have to show you pictures of the aftermath when I took it off — the indentations on my back and my stomach.”
Then in 2024, she wore a silver Margiela dress by John Galliano with a metal corset. Her waist looked even smaller.
On her show, she said, “I’ve never felt this way before, where I feel like I can’t breathe. I can handle it for so long, but it’s like, I have to pee, I can’t breathe… I literally was dying… I’m literally gonna throw up. I’ve never been more uncomfortable… I’ve never been in this much pain before.”
Some celebrities undergo surgery just hours before the event
Instead of changing outfits, some just force their bodies to fit the outfit.
Brazilian Beauty Bar’s Tatiana Vianna told The Cut about one celeb who flew in totally swollen the day before.
She tried on her dress, but it wouldn’t zip. They did a lymphatic drainage session at midnight and hoped for the best.
“In the morning, she said it was zipping halfway. I had her drink multiple cups of green tea — nature’s diuretic — and went back to give her another lymphatic drainage, and within a few hours, it zipped. It was snug but doable and comfortable enough for the red carpet.”
Even surgical procedures are treated like social events
Dr. Darren Smith said a woman in her 40s came in for a fat transfer right before the Gala. That’s where you move fat from one part of your body to another.
She brought her husband and assistant, and they made it a party.
Smith said, “She wanted some fat transfer to fine-tune ahead of the Met Gala. They came in after hours, then asked to order food, and they wanted me to put on music. Next thing you know, their friend showed up. It was the strangest impromptu party I have ever witnessed.”
The pressure to appear perfect often outweighs personal comfort
Celebs will do just about anything to look good at the Met Gala.
Crash diets, surgery, meds — it’s all part of the prep. And you’ll probably never hear about most of it.
