Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | May 11, 2026
In the lead-up to last week's Met Gala, The Washington Post published a piece that asked a question many of us have wondered about: how do stars at this gala use the bathroom without screwing up their expensive outfits? For the article, Maura Judkis interviewed Mickey Freeman, a stylist who has worked with a number of stars. He shared a rather revealing anecdote. Here's the paragraph in question:
Freeman recounted one bathroom mishap. A Met Gala client of his made a "stunning entrance in an elaborate couture sheer mesh jumpsuit, intricately embroidered and adorned with a stunning array of hand-stitched Swarovski crystals and pearls, covering her from neck to toe." (Freeman declined to say who this celebrity was, but Detective Google shows that, in 2024, model Anok Yai wore an outfit that matches this description.)There was one problem: The zipper got stuck while this client was getting dressed. The tailor decided to sew her into the bodysuit. During the dinner, she was "swept up in the grandeur and excitement," had some drinks, and "completely forgot about the zipper situation," Freeman said.
She ended up tearing a hole in the gown, he added, because "inevitably, her bladder decided to remind her."
What Judkis has surmised is that Freeman styled Anok Yai, a very popular and recognisable model, in a now-famous outfit that adorned her, head to toe, in Swarovski crystals. Then, because there was no other way for her to use the bathroom, she ripped open a hole in the dress. This didn't happen, and Yai is furious at The Washington Post for jumping to this conclusion.
She took to Instagram to call out the newspaper for lying about her and making her out to be both a destroyer of expensive property and a kind of vagrant peeing in public. She wrote: "HOW DARE YOU MISALIGN MY CHARACTER AND IMPLY THAT I RIPPED MY OUTFIT AND PEED ON MYSELF DURING THE MET GALA OF 2024! FACT CHECK NEXT TIME! ARE YOU CRAZY?!
Freeman also shared on Instagram that he wasn't talking about Yai. But this is something that the journalist should have known. Why? well, for one, the outfit she thinks Yai ripped open was not a gown, as she described, but a one-piece catsuit. You can find that out through Detective Google. Second, if you see her Instagram post on that year's gala, you'll also see her credited stylist, Carlos Nazario. Freeman didn't attend his first Met Gala until 2025, a whole year before Yai's crystal couture. Also, there are no pearls on this outfit.
As of the writing of this piece, Yai's name and the provably wrong speculation is still there. It hasn't been removed, nor has an apology been offered. It's a staggering failure of research, one that reeks of laziness or something even worse. Admit it, you thought of ChatGPT too, right? It sucks that The Washington Post, a one-time stalwart of American journalism, has gutted its writers room to nothing and there probably wasn't an editorial team in place to check this piece out. The writer is best known for her pieces on food culture but now has a more general across politics, entertainment, and fashion. That's not uncommon -- a lot of us hot-takes merchants have to have a wide range of interests and knowledge areas -- but it does seem like this is not her usual field of focus and it showed in the piece. All you had to do was search Instagram for five minutes to fact-check this. That's how long it took me. Instead, Anok Yai was left humiliated and a one-time legend of newspapers reminded us once more that being gutted out by a tech bro loser is a loss for us all.
