Not budging. Jameela Jamil is doubling down on her disdain for the 2023 Met Gala theme, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty.”
Following the Monday, May 1, soirée, which celebrated the late designer’s work in fashion, Jamil, 37, took to Instagram to shame the event’s attendees.
“Last night Hollywood and fashion said the quiet part out loud when a lot of famous feminists chose to celebrate at the highest level, a man who was so publicly cruel to women, to fat people, to immigrants and to sexual assault survivors,” the Good Place alum wrote via Instagram on Tuesday, May 2, in reference to Lagerfeld — who died at age 85 in 2019.
“All the women’s publications, spectators online, chose to gleefully ignore it,” Jamil continued. “Suddenly your appetite to find someone’s tweets from when they were 12, has gone,” she wrote, calling out “cancel culture.”
Jamil added: “Nobody has perfect morals, least of all me, but Jesus Christ, we had a year to course correct here, and not award the highest honor possible to a known bigot … and everyone just decided all of a sudden, we can separate the art from the artist when *convenient*. And it’s one rule for us, and another rule for everybody else. Last night, we relinquished our right to be taken at all seriously about anything important.”
The London native addressed the matter further in the caption of her social media post. “It’s not even about Karl,” she began. “It’s about showing selective cancel culture is within liberal politics, in the most blatant way so far. It’s about showing why people don’t trust liberals. Because of slippery tactics and double standards like this. And it’s not just Hollywood here, the general public online participated and were entirely complicit in the erasure of the truth last night. They replaced their pitchforks with spoons last night, to lap s—t right up … If we carry on like this, don’t be shocked when we lose the next election.”
Jamil’s sentiments come after she first criticized the Met theme, which was announced in September 2022.
“Karl Lagerfeld is the theme for the entire Met Gala next year. This man … was indeed, supremely talented, but used his platform [in] such a distinctly hateful way, mostly towards women, so repeatedly and up until the last years of his life,” Jamil shared via Instagram at the time. “Showing no remorse, offering no atonement, no apology, no help to groups he attacked … there was no explanation for his cruel outbursts.”
The Misery Index alum continued: “Those groups were women who were sexually assaulted, the entire #MeToo movement, gay couples who wanted to adopt, all fat people, specifically fat women, and some of his greatest harm was against Muslim refugees, and the disgusting way he spoke about people fleeing their homes for fear of their lives.”
Alongside her caption, Jamil shared a series of “receipts,” that highlighted several interviews with Lagerfeld during which he made controversial remarks.
“No one wants to see curvy women,” Lagerfeld told Focus in 2009, according to a screenshot shared by the actress. In a different excerpt from a 2018 conversation with Numero, the designer appeared to take aim at the #MeToo Movement, saying: “If you don’t want your pants pulled about, don’t become a model! Join a nunnery, there’ll always be a place for you in the convent.”
The She-Hulk star shared that while “this probably ends my relationship with Vogue,” she is “amazed to see the entire Met Gala and all the famous celebrities and models celebrating someone who said this s–t about women so often.”
Like every year, the gala’s theme coincides with an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Coming May 2023 — explore the artistic methodology and stylistic vocabulary of Karl Lagerfeld’s designs in ‘Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beaty’ at the Met’s #CostumeInstitute,” the historic institution shared.
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Following Monday’s ball, the showcase will be open to the public on Thursday, May 5. The exhibition will close on Sunday, July 16.
