Show notes
We’re diving into the 2026 Met Gala red carpet, where the fashion was only half the story. From surprise arrivals to late entrances that completely shifted the night’s energy, this year’s event delivered more chaos than ever. We break down the biggest fashion moments, including Beyoncé’s long-awaited return, Rihanna’s headline-making late arrival, and Blake Lively’s unexpected red carpet comeback just hours after major legal news broke. Plus, the standout looks, the most debated outfits, and the celebrity “power moves” that turned the Met Gala into one of the most talked-about nights of the year. Love binge-watching TV? The Spill has launched a new podcast called Watch Partywhere we deep dive into the shows everyone’s talking about. Follow the feed on Apple or Spotify now. Plus remember The Spill drops the tea twice a day in this feed so follow us for all the latest entertainment news… OR you can WATCH our show in full length video on the Apple Podcast app - make sure your phone is up to date and enjoy the watch! Link here. THE END BITS Find and follow us on socials: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespillpodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thespillpod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thespillpodcast/ Read all the latest entertainment news on Mamamia: https://mamamia.com.au/entertainment/ Support Independent Women’s Media: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe/ Your subscription helps us continue to tell the stories that matter to women. Want to join the conversation? Have feedback or a topic you want us to discuss? Send us a voice message or email us at thespill@mamamia.com.au and we’ll get back to you ASAP! Executive Producer: Monisha Iswaran Audio & Video Producer: Michael Kean Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.From Mamma Mia. Welcome to the Spill your daily pop culture fixed. I'm Laura Brednick, and I'm Free Player, executive producer of Mamma MIA's interview podcast No Filter, and former fashion magazine editor. Yes, you're always my partner in crime for these red carpet episodes in dcause we both have hot takes. They're usually very different we do. We often have very like opposing ideas. Yes, what was best, what was worse? And we've been avoiding each other in the office all day. Yeah, we had to yell at each other get away from me because we didn't want to. We didn't want to have a donation. Don't even look at it. You can look at me. We didn't want to have the conversation away from the mic. So if you are listening to this, it means you probably listen to our Met Gala little teaser that dropped in the feed earlier today, because we're dropping this episode a little bit later. Because with the Met car there's so many dresses and there's so many interviews, and then celebrities release their own like look books and updates afterwards. So we needed to bring the people boots on the ground. Journalism with all the looks. So that's why we're coming to you today with our special slightly later episode. Now before we jump into the best, worst, most disastrous, most surprising, most sentimental looks of the day, it's a broad, broad range of looks we're getting into. If you want to see the looks, if you want to actually have the photos in front of you, you can go and listen to us on Apple Podcasts where we're on videos, so you can watch us delightful, watch my face get veteran, veteran rhetoric as I get more excited and overwhelmed. Or you can go and look at all the photos in a gallery on Instagram. So just search the Spill podcast on Instagram. The gallery will be clearly labeled in order of how we're speaking about the looks, so you can follow along and see them all there. Okay, without further ad you, well, our first look is kind of a shared one because we want to just start things off with a bang, and that is Miss Beyonce, who came to the Met Gala for the first time. It was it ten years in over a decade. It's just like so exciting to see her back on the Met Gala. Red carpet, which of course is not red. Let's let's start off by saying, give there a carpet. I love the carpet non red. Okay, this might be the only thing. This might be the thing weiss best dressed to the night is the carpet. I loved it. I did a little moss between Yeah. Yeah, they looked like it was like fake but beautifully done. Yeah, very artistic. Really, and let's bring this to the forefront as well. The theme for this U's met Gala is about fashion being art Yes, so costume costume. So what we get to see is not only like the setting, which is why it's not just your standard red carpet being very artistic and very creative. Is the clothes then on it? And I thought, yeah, the way that it looked this time, it was kind of like it's like a beigey sort of cobblestony, Yes, cobblestony, with like the moss between it. And they had all the beautiful kind of draping again coming down the ceiling. It was creamy it was, and greens and purple it was. It was beautiful, which I thought was such a beautiful backdrop to put all the clothes on as well. Yeah, because sometimes the stairs look lovely, but once you get a dress on them, they cancel each other out. Yeah, like remember the pink here the camp Yeah nine much like it was gorgeous, but then some outfits just didn't work. Yeah, no, no, And that's why celebs are releasing their own They're having their own photo shoots first and releasing them because they're like, I can't trust the lighting and any red carpet, but especially the met gala. Can't trust the lighting, can't trust the background. So okay, and that's the thing. As everyone took their photo, that was the bit where the steps before they became green, they were in that beautiful cream color, which is not a nice backdrop for all the dresses. So we had Beyonce rock up has it been there in ten years? And she was wearing a diamond encrusted dress that looked like a skeleton, so it had like the rib cage and like the pelvis and her hands were skeleton kind of a vibe. And I guess that's to show like the body in its like most like basic form a skeleton, a skeleton. And that's what part of the theme was, was showing the body as well, and the body being kind of the basis for art, so as you say, skeleton is the body stripped back to its most basic form. But I mean, of course, because it's Beyonce. It's jewel encrusted and it's incredible. And then she wore this long feathered cake. Yeah, incredible, that dreaped and then the head piece as well. I mean it's Beyonce, She's always going to bring the dru Yeah. Some people are like, oh, she could have lost the head piece and it's like, no, no, the head piece and it was Olivia Rousting, wasn't it. He used to be from Balmain, who's like she's worked with him before. Yes, she's won a lot of Almaine over the years, so yeah, it wasn't surprising that that's who dressed it. I felt, yes, but I think she looked glorious and I loved that she showed up with her gorgeous, gorgeous best accessory, her daughter. Yes, it was a night for daughters. Yes, Nicole kim And was toting one of her daughters down the red carpet and then Beyonce did it. But Blue Ivy, her oldest daughter who's fourteen now, and I think she actually looked like appropriately dressed for fourteen year olds. I do too. There was a lot anund the office. It's about you know, her being on the on the carpet anyway, and at this event, and you know, these experiences that these really young girls are getting to have. But I thought she I agree, I thought she looked age appropriate and so so gorgeousful so much like her mother. Yeah, that was such a moment because the Beyonce floated up and everyone gass and then Blue Ivy floated behind her, and then they had their moment, and they had their moment together, and then jay Z ran up and and then he was in there and but then they obviously I actually feel like as a family they practiced in the mirror at home because when they got into their first formation for their first photo, they just all I did. Yeah, they just instantly got into the right places and held a pose. And I was like, well, you guys have been practicing that the family living room. Yeah, and I appreciate that level of And Beyonce is a co chair this year. What's interesting is the timing of Beyonces arrived. Yes, if you'll notice all the other co chairs arrived at the top of the top of the day, which is kind of usually, which is how it goes, because they meant to greet people as they come in. Yes, that's part of it. They meant to greet people as they come in. Beyonce has ascended above that level where she is not a greeter. No, they had She's up stairs and being like, hik so much for coming to our party, thanks for coming for a little shin dig Like, no, Beyonce is not doing that. Her arrival was such a moment. It really was. Okay, who else did you go? Because we get week spend an hour on everyone fifty looks to get through. Okay, I'm going to start strut with my favorite of the whole night, and you won't be surprised by this, I don't think. Okay. My favorite was Oh, Sabrina Carpenter. Yes, Sabrina was in Dior. She's been wearing a lot of Dior lately. Jonathan Anderson, who was at Louerva, is now in the House of Dior and doing the most incredible job. Because there has been like quite a shuffle in the last couple of years in the design houses, where like there were designers in certain houses that felt a little bit mislike. Now, I'm not saying he was amazing at Louerva. He did a great job there, but I do feel like what he is doing at Dior is what should be happening at Dior. So I was very excited for this year's met Gala because I feel like after years of kind of the wrong creative directors being in the houses that I felt maybe were they weren't aligned to, or that there were people in those roles that maybe weren't doing the best job interesting for those houses, the dust is settled, and I feel like this is the first time in a few years where the right designers are in the right house the levels. It's like the right house Game of Thrones. It has been a bit of a fashion game of Thrones in the last couple of years. So anyway, I was excited to see I thought Sabrina would wear deal because she's been wearing so much of it lately and she is somewhat like aligned with the house as well. But I was very excited to see what she's wearing now. The gown she's wearing is made of film strips, and the film is of course Sabrina, but the Audrey Hetburn Sabrina. Yes, here's an upsetting fact about me is that Sabrina is one of my favorite movies. But you like the well do you know what? You know what? Okay, but that is usually trees in. It's because obviously, if anyone hasn't seen the Audrey Hepburn movie Sabrina, watch it. It's incredible. But I personally prefer the Julia ormand Harrison Ford Sabrina, which I know is film blasting, you know what, it might be film blasphemy, but I think there's a place for both of them. But it's a place they're both exquisite felt exactly. But I just when I saw the detailing that it was film stills from Sabrina, I nearly lost my mind. That's the most beautiful touch. It's so beautiful. And I love that Sabrina went as Sabrina, but as Sabrina but in this like majorly artistic iteration. Also, and because I am such a swifty fan girl, I'm gonna just say that she's gone a bit show girl this year. And of course she features on Little Maybe with the head Piece a little not to her mentor, but also she features on Life of a show the track title from the album. So look, I'm not saying, oh, you think it's like, well, look, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. It was like a nice little thing. But you're saying it's like shot fired. No no, no, God, no, no, no, we start no Brina and Taylor fe on. I'm not saying that Sabrina's outfit is for like an Easter egg, that this is coming with Taylor's sweet I'm not saying that. But I'm not not saying that the video clips. I'm just you know, last year, Sabrina on the met Gala carpet looked very pop star. This year she looks very showgirl. That's all I'm saying. That's all you're saying. That's all I'm saying. And you can, guys can read into that what you will, what you will. All Right. My next one, it's not a favorite, but it's just one we must discuss. Well, it's kind of a favorite because I appreciate how much this woman takes this seriously, puts her life in the lives of other people on the line, and how much she sticks to the theme. And that is Miss Kimberly Noel Kardashian did you not like it? No? Okay, well let me tell you a backstory maybe then you will. So she worked with British pop artist Alan Jones and Patrick Whittaker on this piece. So it's a golden breastplate for anyone who needs is listening to this just as a podcast, no judgment. It's a golden breastplate. But it has like the high silhouette neck and the cone bra, so we've got a real pointing nipple happening, very sculpted abs and a belly button. And it was craft did from a model in the sixties, which I thought was interesting because she said at first they were thinking like, would they do a mold of her body, which out of everyone, she kind of could have gotten away with because her body is like her cooling cart, and that's why she once walked the red carpet with her face covered because you can just see her body, you know it's her. But they decided to get the body model of a sixties model, and then it was this is the only disappointing thing is that the original look was going to be a full on sculptured suit all the way down, and so they've taken like the legs and the bottom half off and have done that detachable skirt, which is fine, but I feel like it does kind of take away from I would have loved to see her walk down in a fully sculptured suit, like a very old school robotic kind of like end of the World's sci fi vibes. So that's my problem with Oh, that's your problem. That is actually that is actually my problem with it. I think from the waist up absolutely incredible, Yes, And I just wish that it had committed the whole way. It's like she got no I mean I think no, I she didn't get nervous Kim Cush, she doesn't get nervous about I actually wanted her to make more. I think she's one of the few people who because she is always dressed so high fashion, she is not afraid to not be like the prettiest on the night, but be the most headline making And I usually like that about it exactly, and particularly with the met Gala, She's not. There are years where she does not prioritize pretty or sexy. She prioritizes creating a moment. Yeah. I wouldn't even necessarily say she prioritizes the fashion. Yeah, because I feel like it's more moment led with her exactly. Actually it's a headline interest in fashion, and we like that. But that's what she does, and she does it so well. I don't think she did it this year. Yeah, I appreciate the thought behind it. If you go to her Instagram, she's done a huge behind the scenes, like almost her own magazine photo editorial spread to explain the look. And when you see all that and you read it, it makes more sense. But I do wish maybe she'd just gone with the full look, but also the top part, the bones and the bra and everything was finished in autobody shop. So some men who work on cars hameadat and I love that. And I hope they know it's at the met Gala. They would have loved that. Okay, who's your next person? I am going to talk…
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