17 Met Gala Looks That Took "Beauty Is Pain" Wayyyy Too Far

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04-05-2025

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A lot of famous women embrace the saying "beauty is pain" on the red carpet. However, a dress doesn't have to be super restrictive to be beautiful — just look at Princess Diana's 1996 Met Gala dress! In the Hulu docuseries In Vogue: The 90s, Dior designer John Galliano said, "She'd been invited to the Met, and she would wear one of my dresses...Fast-forward to the event, and I just remember her getting out of the car. I couldn't believe it. She'd ripped the corset out. She didn't want to wear the corset. She felt so liberated. She'd torn the corset out. The dress was much more sensuous."
Here are 17 Met Gala looks that celebs struggled to breathe, eat, or move in:
1. In 2024, Tyla wore an hourglass-inspired Balmain dress. Per Vogue, the sand was molded to a cast of her body. To get up the stairs, she needed three assistants — one to carry her while she stayed completely still, and two to hold her train. You can watch the video here.
Here's her full look.
When she got inside the event, Olivier Rousteing, the creative director of Balmain, trimmed her dress to a more manageable length. You can see the Instagram video here.
2. At the 2018 Met Gala, Rihanna's pope-inspired Margiela look was difficult to wear because of its weight. She told Entertainment Tonight, "It was heavy. Every step was a squat. I promise you, my butt gained from that night. I had another option that was a lot more simple, same Margiela, but I felt like it was an insult to the people who sat there and, like, hand-beaded that entire thing, to just say, 'No, put that in the archives.' It was so great, I couldn't deny it."
3. In 2016, Kylie Jenner wore a silver Balmain gown that left her with scratched, bleeding legs and bruised, swollen feet. Sharing pictures on Snapchat, she added, "It was worth it, though."
Here's her full look:
4. Then, in 2017, Kylie wore a Versace gown. On an episode of Life of Kylie, she tried the dress on for the first time and said it needed to be tight enough for her to "kind of suffocate."
And here's a full look at her outfit:
5. At the 2018 Met Gala, Zendaya wore a cumbersome Joan of Arc-inspired look. She told Vogue, "The day before, going there, putting it on, I was like, 'Wow.' It was so heavy 'cause of the beading, but it was so beautifully constructed, and it's Versace. And typically, like, I can handle a night out, you know, with my heels and everything. I've been wearing heels for a long time, but I don't know. It was something about a mixture of, like, wearing these platforms and, like, the heaviness of my dress. I was struggling. I was like, 'I need to sit down.' But it was all worth it."
6. In 2018, Bella Hadid accessorized her Chrome Hearts gown with a 10-pound veil. On her Instagram story, she said, "If anyone was wondering why I couldn't move, it's because a legend by the name of @jenatkinhair sewed a whole entire 10-pound veil to my head."
Here's her full look:
7. In 2011, Beyoncé wore a Emilio Pucci mermaid gown. She seemingly struggled to walk, and her husband, Jay Z, and her stylist, Ty Hunter, helped her walk up the famous staircase.
Here's a full look at her dress:
8. At the 2024 Met Gala, Elle Fanning wore a Balmain gown with sculptural birds on the shoulders. However, per the Washington Post, the dress was a challenge to walk in, and to get up the stairs, she had to side-step while holding hands with two assistants. You can see the video here.
9. At the 2023 Met Gala, Chloe Fineman wore a Wiederhoeft gown. She told Vogue, "The first fitting was hilarious. It was Ana de Armas's week on SNL. We had just finished our table read that Wednesday, and Jackson [Wiederhoeft, the designer] came to do a fitting at 30 Rock in the SNL costume department. I was like, 'I hope they pick the American Girl doll sketch!' I was so distracted. And then he squeezed me into a corset, and I couldn't breathe." She also said her hosting duties influenced the design. She said, "The corseting is why I fell in love with him, but it can't be too tight, because, you know, I don't want to fall over."
Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
10. In a since-deleted Instagram post, Priyanka Chopra Jonas said, "My second Met Gala outfit [in 2018] was this blood-red Ralph Lauren beautiful outfit with the gold hood. But the corset under that thing, I couldn't breathe. I felt like it reshaped my ribs. So hard to sit during dinner and I obviously couldn't eat too much during that night."
ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images
11. In 2021, Hailey Bieber wore a strapless Saint Laurent gown that was so tight she wasn't allowed to sit down in it. On The Ellen DeGeneres Show, she said, "So, the thing about the dress was, I am really, like, OCD and crazy about the way things fit. Like, I am always, like, pinching things, like, 'It can go in here.' So we were kinda tailoring it to, like, the very last day in the very last second. And my whole team was like, 'You cannot sit or, like, move in a weird way until you get inside.' They're like, 'If you rip the dress inside, that's fine. But if you rip it before, there is, like, nothing we can do.'...I was able to sit inside, but it was very fitted."
Kevin Mazur/MG21 / Getty Images For The Met Museum/Vogue
12. In 2022, Kendalll Jenner wore a two-piece Prada outfit that was so heavy, she needed help getting into her van. On an episode of The Kardashians, she shared that she also had a panic attack on the drive to the gala.
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Here's her full look:
Gotham / Getty Images
13. When Anya Taylor-Joy wore a weighty Dolce & Gabbana gown to the 2018 Met Gala, Jimmy Fallon "saved [her] life." On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she told the host, "I was wearing a dress that was ridiculously heavy, and I couldn't really move, and I was just kind of trying to get through the evening. And at the end of the night, I'm at the top of the stairs. The gorgeous Hailee Steinfeld walks past me, has a very complicated, like, three-train thing, and I get wrapped up in it. And I'm like, 'Oh, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die on the steps of the Met, darling.' But literally, just out of nowhere, the 'hand of God' came out and pulled me out of it, and it was you. And you were just so sweet about it. You were like, 'Hey, I'm Jimmy. Nice to meet you.' I was like, 'Okay, thank you.'"
Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images
14. At the 2019 Met Gala, Kim Kardashian a wet look Mugler outfit that consisted of a corset made by Mr. Pearl beneath silicone-covered silk organza. On Instagram, she shared that she had to take "corset breathing lessons from none other than Mr. Pearl." She also 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."
Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
15. Then in 2021, Kim's Balenciaga outfit obscured her head-to-toe. On The Ellen DeGeneres Show, her mom, Kris Jenner, said, "The whole evening of the Met Ball, Kim couldn't see, and she couldn't breathe, so my boyfriend Corey [Gamble] was walking around, we were all together, and he was leading her to where we were supposed to go, and helping with her ponytail. It was suddenly he was like, you know, somebody pulling her around and a hairstylist all at the same time."
Theo Wargo / Getty Images
16. In 2022, Kim Kardashian wore Marilyn Monroe's famous "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" dress. In order for it to fit without alterations, Kim did a dangerous crash diet, which involved adding meat back to her typically plant-based menu. One of the side effects was a painful psoriasis flareup. She told Allure, "Psoriasis broke out over my body, and I got psoriatic arthritis, so I couldn't really move my hands. It was really painful, and I had to go to a rheumatologist who put me on a steroid. I was freaking out. I cut out the meat again, and it's calmed down."
Taylor Hill / Getty Images
17. And finally, at the 2024 Met Gala, Kim Kardashian wore a custom Margiela by John Galliano gown with a metal corset. In a Season 6 episode of The Kardashians, 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. I was gonna sneak out right before the dinner, but then I walked by [Anna Wintour's] table, and Anna goes, 'Perfect, you're here. Can you sit in my seat while I go make my rounds?'"
Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images
Here's what her back looked like when she took off the corset. She said it was "abso-fucking-lutely" worth it.
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She said, "Yes! That's just who I am. If you look good, it was all worth it."
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And in a BTS video from Vogue, she said, "[Breathing is] an art form, but I got it."
Vogue / Via youtube.com