Olivia Rodrigo was among the most notable celebrities not on the Met Gala red carpet on Monday, May 4th. Her absence came after she was among the 600,000 people and counting who liked an Instagram post criticizing Met Gala chair Jeff Bezos.
The video post, from the workers’ rights group Amazon Cause, features a stern message delivered by an Amazon worker from North Carolina calling for a boycott of the event.
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“My name is Mary Hill. I am a 72-year-old warehouse worker at one of your facilities,” she says. “When we struggle from paycheck to paycheck, from week to week, it really angers me because if it weren’t for every associate in every Amazon facility, he wouldn’t have all those zeros behind his name. Shame on you, Jeff Bezos. The people that need to be celebrated at the Met Gala are the workers. People like me. We deserve that celebration. We deserve so much more than we’re getting.”
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Hill continues, “There’s power in numbers, and there’s more of us than there are of you. Remember, Jeff. Ordinary people like myself that help make you billionaires, if we built it, we can tear it down. Think about that tonight, okay? After that bottle of champagne that helps you go to bed. We’re going to keep growing, and we’re going to keep building, and we’re going to keep protesting, and we’re going to keep marching, and we’re going to keep fighting this dystopian culture. We’re not stopping. We’re just getting cranked up.”
Leading up to the event, activist group Everyone Hates Elon put up posters all over New York City. Besides the straightforward “Boycott the Bezos Met Gala,” another read, “The Bezos Met Gala: Brought to you by worker exploitation.” A similar poster said the event was “brought to you by the firm that powers ICE.”
There was also a group of protestors on the ground at the Met Gala holding up giant letters spelling, “Tax the Rich,” while actress Sarah Paulson made her mark on the red carpet itself. According to Reuters, she wore a look representing the “1%” from the Fecal Matter “ONE Percent” collection. It featured a dollar bill covering her eyes as a quite literal critique of the ultra-wealthy.
It is worth noting that Rodrigo did attend a Met Gala afterparty, but her point was made. The singer has a long history of aligning with social and political causes. In 2022, she brought Lily Allen on stage during Glastonbury and dedicated their performance of “Fuck You” to the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
More recently, Rodrigo launched her “Fund 4 Good” reproductive rights initiative during her 2024 “GUTS World Tour” and called out the DHS for using her song “All-American Bitch” in a social media video she described as “racist, hateful propaganda.” She also wore an “ICE OUT” pin during the Grammys and associated events.
Rodrigo is coming off pulling double duty on the most recent episode of Saturday Night Live in support of her upcoming album, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, due out June 12th. The album will further be supported by “The Unraveled Tour,” a massive 60-plus-date run of arena shows across North America, Europe, and the UK.
