A Source Explains Why Selena Gomez Skipped the 2024 Met Gala

While Gomez has been in New York City to film Only Murders in the Building season four, the singer chose to sit Met Gala night out. A source told People on May 7 that Gomez didn’t attend the May 6 event because she “was busy working.”

The star had participated in an event earlier in the week for Rare Beauty, speaking at the brand’s mental health summit about how much she benefited from her four-year break from Instagram.

In regards to social media generally, “I remember when it came out, it was the weirdest thing. I didn’t believe it would do anything,” she said. “And I recognized that a lot of feelings that I didn’t feel growing up just started happening. So it would make me feel like I wasn’t good enough or I wasn’t really leading a good life or, ‘oh, everybody else did this,’ and I know it’s just very silly. And ultimately, I took four years off, and that was the best gift I could have given myself, because I was actually aware of what was happening. I would get phone calls from friends instead of, ‘did you see my story?’ It was like, ‘Well then, tell me your story.’ It’s like now I can have communication.”

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Gomez last attended the Met Gala in 2018, where she wore a light pink Coach dress in honor of the evening’s “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” theme. She later called her tan there one of her most “memorable” beauty disasters.

She told Glamour UK in 2022, “While I was getting ready for the Met Gala a few years ago, we put on a bit of tanning lotion and it looked beautiful, but as the night went on it kept getting darker and darker. When I sat down [inside the event], I saw a photo of myself, and it looked completely orange. And here I am at this prestigious event. My first thought was, ‘I have to get out of here!’”

Gomez joked about her great escape from the Met Gala the night of the event. “Me when I saw my pictures from MET ????????‍♀️,” she captioned an Instagram of herself leaving the museum.

This post has been updated with People’s report revealing the exact reason for her absence.