Beyoncé made a triumphant return to the 2026 Met Gala after skipping the high-profile event for the past decade.
The music superstar, 44, stunned as she walked the red carpet at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art on Monday, May 4, nailing the “Costume Art” theme with a skeleton-inspired silver gown and long, fluffy cape by Olivier Rousteing, a matching headpiece and silver jewelry by Chopard.
Beyoncé’s 14-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, also made her Met Gala debut in a stunning white gown and matching cropped jacket. The teen finished off her look with a pair of dark sunglasses.
“It feels surreal because my daughter’s here,” the proud mom said on the red carpet. “It’s incredible to be able to share with her, and she looks so incredible.”
Beyoncé is serving as a co-chair of the 2026 Met Gala alongside Nicole Kidman, Venus Williams and Anna Wintour. This is her first time in the role, though she previously acted as an honorary chair at the 2013 event.
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Beyoncé made her Met Gala red carpet debut in 2008, subsequently returning for fashion’s biggest night every year between 2011 and 2016. Some of her most iconic looks of all time are the Givenchy Haute Couture gowns she wore at the Met Gala, from her sheer bejeweled naked dress in 2015 to her nude latex gown embellished with pearls in 2016.
Beyoncé, Jay-Z and her sister, Solange Knowles, also memorably made headlines for the infamous elevator argument between Jay-Z, 56, and Solange, 39, at a 2014 Met Gala afterparty. After footage of the incident surfaced, which showed Solange hitting and kicking Jay-Z as Beyoncé stood by, the trio released a statement saying they “worked through” their issues privately.
“Jay and Solange each assume their share of responsibility for what has occurred. They both acknowledge their role in this private matter that has played out in the public,” the statement read. “They both have apologized to each other and we have moved forward as a united family.”
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Despite making her mark at the Met Gala seven times in years past, Beyoncé has been noticeably absent from the event since 2017. While some years her whereabouts were unknown, last year she was performing a concert in California as part of her Cowboy Carter Tour on the night of the 2025 Met Gala.
As her career progressed and her family grew, Beyoncé — who shares daughter Blue Ivy and twins Rumi and Sir, 8, with Jay-Z — has also opted to spend less time in the public eye. In September 2021, she explained her desire to maintain her privacy amid superstardom.
“In this business, so much of your life does not belong to you unless you fight for it,” she told Harper’s Bazaar at the time. “I’ve fought to protect my sanity and my privacy because the quality of my life depended on it. A lot of who I am is reserved for the people I love and trust. Those who don’t know me and have never met me might interpret that as being closed off. Trust, the reason those folks don’t see certain things about me is because my Virgo ass does not want them to see it. … It’s not because it doesn’t exist!”
