The dark side of Met Gala 2026: How AI photos, videos, and deepfakes took over the Red Carpet…
During the 2026 Met Gala, AI-generated deepfakes of celebrities flooded social media, fooling millions and highlighting the growing problem of detecting synthetic content.
- Incident date
- May 2026
- Target
- Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, Kendall Jenner, Cardi B
On May 5, 2026, the Met Gala became a testing ground for AI-generated content, as deepfakes of celebrities rapidly spread across social media platforms. Many viewers were unable to distinguish these fabrications from genuine red-carpet moments.
What happened
The "Costume Art" theme of the event, which encouraged extravagant and imaginative fashion, was particularly well-suited for exploitation by AI image generators. Fake images of celebrities who did not attend, such as Nicki Minaj, circulated widely. A fabricated image of Minaj in a lavender gown garnered millions of views before being flagged as AI-generated. Deepfakes also featured Lady Gaga in a Thierry Mugler design and Dua Lipa holding Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, neither of which were real. Cardi B’s “small intestine dress” was also fabricated and posted by numerous users. Many users treated the AI-generated content as authentic, and some AI tools even validated the fakes, which were then amplified by news sources. One account, called RickDick, was identified as a source of many viral fakes.