Here’s why some of your favorite celebs weren’t at the Met Gala

The biggest night in fashion resulted in some of the best looks hitting the red carpet at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for the 2023 Met Gala, with stars taking the theme to heart and putting on their best show.

But many have noticed that a number of Met Gala guests, who have made an impression in previous years, were noticeably absent this year, including, Lady Gaga, Zendaya, Selena Gomez, and Blake Lively.

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga is a fashion force to be reckoned with all on her own and has taken that reputation with her on the Met Gala red carpet. Her last Met Gala in 2019 appearance featured a 16-minute entrance and four outfit changes, all before making her way into the Met.

But during this year’s Met Gala, Lady Gaga was busy performing the last show of her Las Vegas residency ‘Lady Gaga Enigma + Jazz & Piano’. The singer/actress has also been filming for her latest movie ‘Joker: Folie à Deux’, where she plays the Joker’s love interest, Harley Quinn.

Zendaya

Zendaya, whose previous Met Gala appearances included a stunning color-changing, light-up Cinderella dress at the 2019 Met Gala, with stylist Law Roach as her fairy godfather, and a resilient homage to Saint Joan of Arc at the 2018 Met Gala, was also absent on Monday.

Both Zendaya and boyfriend, Tom Holland, were last spotted at Usher’s residency show in Las Vegas on Thursday. Prior to this, she was seen at CinemaCon, also in Las Vegas, at the ‘Dune: Part Two’ presentation and also to receive her Star of the Year award, wearing a gold vintage Versace gown.

Selena Gomez

Selena Gomez has been a fixture at the Met Gala since 2014′s ‘Charles James: Beyond Fashion’ theme, where she wore a plum-colored Diane Von Furstenberg mermaid gown. She later wore a white Vera Wang gown for 2015′s ‘China: Through The Looking Glass’ theme.

At the time of this year’s Met Gala, Gomez was quiet on her whereabouts, but she may have been busy filming for ‘Emilia Perez’, an upcoming crime/comedy/musical, with Zoe Saldaña and Edgar Ramírez.

Blake Lively

Blake Lively confirmed at Saturday’s grand reopening of New York’s Tiffany & Co. Fifth Avenue store that she wouldn’t be at the Met Gala, but that she “will be watching.”

She previously appeared at last year’s Met Gala, wearing a dress that represented the oxidization process that the Statue of Liberty went through since it was created, changing color from copper to green. She also attended the 2018 Met Gala in a golden long-sleeved gown, that ended in a train of blue feathers, which many noted matched the Met Gala’s carpet.