You'll Never Guess How Much It Costs Just To Get Ready For The Met Gala

Celebrities aren't just hiring makeup artists and stylists for the annual event. These days, getting Met Gala-ready involves everything from fat-transfer parties to in-flight tans and emergency blood pressure meds.

A Met Gala ticket is already $75,000, while a table is around $350,000. According to The Cut, some celebrities spend up to $600,000 getting ready. These celebs hire beauty experts for private facials, have 3 a.m. house calls, receive whatever IV drip promises to make them glow, and then some.

According to writer Jennifer G. Sullivan, “VIPs are getting tucked and tweaked and calling in prescriptions for eye drops and blood-pressure medication (IYKYK) ahead of their Fifth Avenue ascension.” Behind the scenes, it’s a blur of glam squads hopping hotel rooms, coaxing, calming, and occasionally medicating their way to red-carpet perfection.

Celebrity aesthetician Iván Pol said, “One was a house call at 3 a.m. on Monday because she was also doing Good Morning America.” He worked on 29 attendees in the three days leading up to the Gala (that’s nearly ten people a day, BTW). Using red light and radio-frequency therapy helps you get that refreshed look... for a hefty price, of course.

Dr. Darren Smith described what can only be called a cosmetic séance, telling the magazine, “Last year, I had a 40-something philanthropist patient come in with her husband and assistant for body sculpting. She wanted some fat transfer to fine-tune ahead of the Met Gala. They came in after hours, then asked to order food – and they wanted me to put on music. Next thing you know, their friend showed up. It was the strangest impromptu party I have ever witnessed.”

You know what’s more intense than preparing for the biggest fashion event of the year? Forgetting your prescriptions the day of. Internist Amanda Kahn shared, “Last year, about an hour before the red carpet, one of my patients realized she had forgotten all of her medication. The entire team was suddenly in crisis mode.” Luckily, her pharmacist came through like a Manhattan fairy godmother. “I gave him a call, and within minutes he had everything prepared, including navigating the medications through the guardrails to hand it off to her team.”

Edyta Jarosz, who has worked with Madonna and Michaela Coel, says stars want a lip-filled look minus the bruising and swelling. “I use the DiamondGlow device’s flat diamond tip and a HA pro-infusion serum... It’s like a temporary filler that lasts 48 hours.”

Meanwhile, tanning expert James Read has done it all, literally in the air. “The most intense was one year when I had to tan a client aboard a private jet..." Read said. "I applied the tan in fine layers to make sure it would be even and red-carpet ready immediately.”

The eyes have to pop, obviously. Carolina Gonzalez, who’s worked with Sabrina Carpenter and Gigi Hadid, relies on Upneeq drops: “One drop for someone with low-lying eyelids gives that lifted effect... it works in as fast as five minutes, lasting up to eight hours.”

Tatiana Vianna, a Brazilian beauty guru specializing in lymphatic massages, explained what happens when you land bloated from an overseas flight. “She had a fitting shortly after landing, and the dress would not zip – not even a little bit..." she recalled. "We did a lymphatic-drainage treatment around midnight and prayed it would be better by morning.” Spoiler: it zipped!

If all that isn’t enough, some celebs do TruFlex, a muscle-toning machine, for five days straight. Lucia Miranda said, “My one client was doing TruFlex on her thighs and abs, while I was giving her Everesse skin tightening on her face.”

The men are getting glammed- up, too. Jae Manuel Cardenas recalled one red carpet race against the clock. He shared, "I was getting an A-list male celebrity ready... he was covered in cake and we only had five minutes to turn it around. He had to shower, and we had to make a miracle happen... He got there just as the carpet was closing.”

Lasers are not out of the picture. Dr. Anetta Reszko preps one recurring Met attendee with the kind of regimen that sounds like a Bond villain’s skincare routine: “The month before, we do a multimodal laser treatment, combining Aerolase, Laser Genesis, and Excel V in a single session.” It doesn’t end there… there’s mesotherapy, microcurrents, and an NAD+ IV drip.

By the time these celebs reach the steps of the Met, they’ve clocked enough hours of grooming to qualify for a dermatology degree – and enough invoices to fund a small indie film. But hey, if the flashbulbs catch you mid-blink or your cheeks don’t glow just right, it’s all for nothing, right?

All that for a photo on the iconic stairs. Is it worth it? Well, they seem to think so – and when we see them looking airbrushed and perfect in real life, it’s hard to argue.

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