The Met Gala is one of the most glamorous and high-profile celebrity events of the year—and certainly the biggest fashion event, as well. So, basically, if you attend, a lot of people are going to see you in whatever you choose to wear. At the 2018 Met Gala, actor and singer Selena Gomez was well aware of that, but what she didn't realize was that she was going to have a mishap with her look that would get the internet talking.
Gomez opened up about her beauty disaster in a new video for Vogue's Beauty Secrets series, including finding out about it while she was still at the party. Read on to find out the story behind her most embarrassing red carpet moment and how, exactly, it all went wrong.
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Gomez's Met Gala look didn't go as planned.
The 2018 Met Gala theme was Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. Gomez wore an off-white embellished gown by Coach that featured embroidery of one of her favorite lines of scripture in her own handwriting: "A woman who fears the Lord is a woman who shall be praised."
But it wasn't her outfit that was the problem. Gomez had applied self-tanner before hitting the red carpet, and it kept developing to a darker color once she arrived at the event. "Before I apply bronzer, I want to tell you a funny story about a little self-tanner," she says in the Vogue video. "For the Met Gala [in 2018], I was getting ready, and we wanted to add some color. So, I put on some of this tanning lotion, and it looked really beautiful and very even. As the evening kept going on, it was getting a little darker and darker, and I didn't notice it."
She didn't realize what had happened until after she'd posed on the carpet.
Photos from the Met Gala hit the internet in real time, meaning that anyone who wants to take in the fashion from home can do so right away. "I'm at the Met Gala, basically one of the most prestige, beautiful events, and I'm walking trying to look beautiful," Gomez continues, laughing. "And I look at a photo of myself when I sit down, and I'm completely orange." Today, the 29-year-old has her own makeup line called Rare Beauty.
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She decided to make a joke about it before she got trolled.
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Gomez wanted to let people know as soon as she could that her tan was a mistake, not a look she was purposely going for. So, she had her security person help her film a video of her sprinting to her car when she was leaving the party. She posted the video on Instagram and captioned it, "Me when I saw my pictures from MET" along with a shrugging emoji. The Instagram post now has over 15 million views.
"I was like this is going to be terrible, because I'm going to get eaten alive about this," Gomez explains in the Vogue video. "So I had my security take a video of me, because my first reaction was just to get the hell out of there. And so, I'm running to my car. I'm literally just hauling *** to get to my car, and then I put it online. I was saying, 'This is my reaction after seeing my Met Gala photos.'"
She also made light of the situation on another occasion.
While Gomez wasn't happy about the tanning accident, she clearly took it in stride. She even joked about it again. As reported by Elle, a week after the Met Gala, the Only Murders in the Building star attended a Puma event and said, "I fixed it from Met Gala," when fans complimented her "bronze glow."
RELATED: Jennifer Aniston Says This Was Her Most Embarrassing Moment.
Lia Beck Lia Beck is a writer living in Richmond, Virginia. In addition to Best Life, she has written for Refinery29, Bustle, Hello Giggles, InStyle, and more.Read moreFiled UnderCelebrities • Entertainment • Fashion • NewsRead This NextThe 16 Most Surprising Celebrity Friendships
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