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Billy Porter wins Met Gala fashion fest as he's carried in a litter

The Pharaoh of Phashion tops everyone else's entrance.

Headshot of Gael Cooper
Headshot of Gael Cooper
Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, and generational studies Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper

Actor and singer Billy Porter stole the show at Monday's Met Gala in New York when he entered draped in gold and carried on a black velvet couch by six shirtless litter-bearers, also wearing gold. It was a memorable moment.

Vogue described Porter's outfit, made by The Blonds, as, "a bejeweled catsuit outfitted with 10-foot wings, a 24-karat gold headpiece, as well as custom gold-leaf Giuseppe Zanotti shoes and fine jewels by Andreoli and Oscar Heyman." So just your everyday casual Monday wear.

The look immediately lent itself to some good memes. "Me entering class even knowing I'm late," one person wrote. 

The theme of this year's Met Gala, aka the annual benefit for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, is Camp: Notes on Fashion. Porter told Variety his interpretation of the theme. "Camp means irreverence," he said. "Camp means as hugely over-the-top and grand and what some may feel is ridiculous and silly, and embracing all of those creative impulses inside us that very often are squelched."  

Porter, star of the FX show Pose, made headlines at the 2019 Academy Awards for wearing a tuxedo dress.