Why Rihanna, Taylor Swift, and More Didn't Go to the Met Gala

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Did you notice a few of your faves were missing from the Met Gala 2024 red carpet? Namely, superstars like Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Blake Lively, Billie Eilish, and well, many more.

This year's gala was skipped by quite a few A-listers and Met favorites, and their reasons for not attending the ball are super diverse: there's a golfing injury, the flu, working late 'cause they are singers, and, of course, travel and tour schedules.

With these celebs in such high demand, it makes sense that there are some years they have to miss one of the most exclusive parties in the world. I mean, hell, even 2024 co-chair Zendaya took five years off from the event. But we can't help but express our sadness that they weren't present to turn a show-stopping look.

To find out why so many stars chose not to sow their seeds in The Garden of Time, check out a list of the usual, ol' reliable Met suspects who did not attend this year's gala below:

Taylor Swift (and Travis Kelce)

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Taylor Swift has not attended the Met Gala since 2016, when the theme was Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. Fans speculated whether Swift and her boyfriend Travis Kelce, who together have become a kind of celebrity supercell in their own right, would attend this year's ball together. In March, TMZ reported that Kelce declined his invite (it would be his first time in attendance) and noted that the couple wouldn't "make their big debut at the Met Gala because they're passing on soaking up the spotlight at fashion's biggest night." Fans still held out hope that Swift would pull another Super Bowl-esque jet trip, but, per People, it seems as though she was too busy preparing for the European leg of the Eras Tour, which begins on May 9 in Paris.

Blake Lively

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