All the Secret Photos Celebrities Took Inside the 2026 Met Gala
Cell phone photography is prohibited inside the venue—but these selfies are worth it
Reported by Harper's Bazaar.
The Met Gala red carpet is a performance — choreographed, lit, and logged for public consumption. But the images that actually break through every year aren't the official portraits. They're the ones shot on someone's phone between courses, in a hallway, mid-laugh, with a champagne flute slightly out of frame.
This year's inside shots, according to Harper's Bazaar, captured exactly that. Ayo Edebiri, Jennie, Gracie Abrams, Bhavitha Mandava, and Awar Odhiang clustered together in what looked less like a celebrity summit and more like a genuinely good time — the kind of photo that makes you forget, briefly, that everyone in it is wearing six figures worth of couture. Lily-Rose Depp made an appearance in the same orbit, which felt both inevitable and right.
The Group Chat IRL
The BLACKPINK contingent — Lisa, Jisoo, and Rosé — showed up across multiple frames alongside Margot Robbie, Rachel Sennott, Audrey Nuna, and Ejae, forming the kind of cross-industry, cross-continental lineup that the Met does better than any other event on earth. Rosé also pulled off what might be the evening's most enviable double-feature: a candid with Connor Storrie and another with Tate McRae and Jung Ho-yeon. Meanwhile, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie made their own moment — proof that the boys were not, in fact, just standing around waiting for their dates.
What makes these photos work isn't access — it's affect. Everyone looks like they actually want to be in the picture. No performative nonchalance, no over-posed three-quarter turns. Just people who happen to be extraordinarily famous, caught in a genuinely unguarded room.
The real Met Gala has always happened after the carpet — and this year, the camera roll proves it.
Read the original at Harper's Bazaar.
