<\/p>\n
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez attend The 2024 Met Gala Celebrating \u201cSleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion\u201d at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 6, 2024 in New York City. The pair are funding the 2026 event. (Kevin Mazur\/MG24\/Getty Images for The Met Museum\/Vogue)<\/p>\n
Kevin\u00a0Mazur\/MG24\/Getty Images for The Met Museum\/Vogue<\/p>\n
Anna\u00a0Wintour and Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos attend the press conference for the 2026 Met Gala celebrating \u201cCostume Art\u201d at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 4, 2026 in New York City. (Roy\u00a0Rochlin\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Roy\u00a0Rochlin\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Beyonc\u00e9 performs onstage during the \u201cRENAISSANCE WORLD TOUR\u201d at\u00a0MetLife Stadium on\u00a0July 29, 2023 in\u00a0East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Kevin Mazur\/WireImage for Parkwood)<\/p>\n
Kevin Mazur\/WireImage for Parkwood<\/p>\n
Jimmy\u00a0Kimmel, winner of\u00a0the Best Talk Show Award for \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d, poses in the press room during the 31st Annual Critics Choice Awards at Barker Hangar on January 4, 2026 in Santa Monica, California. (Amy\u00a0Sussman\/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association)<\/p>\n
Amy\u00a0Sussman\/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association<\/p>\n
Today, we\u2019re introducing something new: \u201cCulture Diem,\u201d a weekly (ish) opportunity to seize the day\u2019s latest pop culture news.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Why? Well, partly because I am a pop culture obsessive who thought this could be fun. My fixation, though, extends beyond simply being chronically online and following celebrities. It\u2019s rooted in the fact that nothing in this life\u00a0\u2014 be it \u201cThe Devil Wears\u00a0Prada 2\u201d<\/a> or the rise of SkinnyTok and Y2K\u2019s \u201cheroin chic\u201d\u00a0\u2014 happens in a vacuum. Whether intentionally or not, art and entertainment react to the political, social, economic and, yes, cultural world surrounding them. Things deemed \u201cpop culture\u201d just happen to be an accessible way into these topics.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Today, much of life\u2019s news is scrolled by in a deluge of algorithmic Reels and TikToks about bread-making, GLP-1s, movie trailers for the latest remake\/sequel\/prequel\/spinoff, war in the Middle East, Taylor Swift interviews, ICE pulling people from their cars, rent and grocery budgeting, and travel tips. I\u2019ll pluck a few pop culture items dominating headlines\u00a0\u2014 and social media feeds\u00a0\u2014 and explain not only why it\u2019s trending but why it matters.\u00a0<\/p>\n Anna Wintour, left, and Teyana Taylor, right, attend the 2025 Met Gala. (Neilson Barnard\/MG25\/Getty Images for The Met Museum\/Vogue)<\/p>\n Neilson Barnard\/MG25\/Getty Images for The Met Museum\/Vogue<\/p>\n Met Gala Monday: Bezos, Mamdani and fashion\u2019s biggest night<\/p>\n Not only does today mark the debut of this column, but it\u2019s also Met Gala Monday, aka fashion\u2019s biggest night. The event, presented in partnership with Vogue, serves as one of the biggest fundraisers for the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Costume Institute, a fact that sometimes gets swept under the metaphorical red carpet. Individual tickets for this year\u2019s \u201cFashion is Art\u201d-themed party started at $100,000, and all the funds raised support the Costume Institute, as has been the case since the Met Gala emerged in 1948.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Make the Times Union a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n The event has always walked a tense tightrope as the invited celebrities and 1% don extravagant designs and parade about, but this year hit a breaking point. Why? Jeff Bezos and Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos are honorary chairs of the event alongside current chairs\u00a0Beyonc\u00e9, Nicole Kidman, Vanessa Williams and Anna Wintour. Oh, and the Bezos are bankrolling a lot of the expenses for the gala and the Costume Institute\u2019s partnering exhibition.<\/p>\n The news that Bezos, oligarch founder of Amazon and dismantler of the Washington Post, will step into the role of culture maker was met with outrage. Some activist groups are calling for a boycott, and posters denouncing the Bezos\u2019 involvement<\/a> have cropped up around the city, with many pointing to recent reports about unsafe working conditions at Amazon facilities and Amazon Web Services’ role as the primary data source for ICE. I expect protesters will greet the elite as they arrive.<\/p>\n Additionally, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is skipping the gala, news that is surprising only because it breaks with mayoral tradition. The democratic socialist framed his decision as a means to stay focused on \u201cmaking the most expensive city in the United States affordable\u201d in an interview with Hell Gate<\/a>. Rubbing elbows with the wealthy\u00a0\u2014 particularly as he attempts to\u00a0increase the taxes they pay<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 seems out of place for\u00a0Mamdani. When his peer Alexandria Ocasio Cortez attended in 2021, not even her \u201cTAX THE RICH\u201d emblazoned gown could shield her from criticism<\/a> for supporting an event at odds with her progressive ideals (she also faced a House Ethics Committee investigation<\/a>\u00a0over her attendance).<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n There\u2019s another layer of unsettling intrigue to the Bezos ball: their involvement has revived rumors Jeff Bezos plans to buy Cond\u00e9 Nast, the parent company of Vogue and its international siblings, The New Yorker, GQ, Vanity Fair and other publications. The rumors first circulated in Daily Mail last year, with reports suggesting Jeff\u00a0Bezos was going to buy the media company as a wedding gift for Lauren; the Bezos denied these rumors.\u00a0There are allegations that one of the\u00a0plot lines in \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2\u201d was even inspired by this potential deal.<\/p>\n Tech moguls \u201crescuing\u201d media companies isn\u2019t new.\u00a0Bezos bought the\u00a0Washington Post<\/a> for $250 million in 2013, only to lay off approximately 30% of the newspaper\u2019s employees earlier this year. Media is struggling, but it\u2019s hard not to see a Bezos-Vogue connection\u00a0as a death sentence for Cond\u00e9 Nast publications. The Devil may wear Prada, but the Reaper comes with two-day shipping.<\/p>\n On my radar:<\/p>\n As for other pop culture happenings, here\u2019s what else I\u2019m keeping an eye on:<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Met Gala co-chair\u00a0Beyonc\u00e9 recently wiped \u201cCowboy Carter\u201d merch from her site and has been posting a lot of purple and rock n\u2019 roll content, including archival video of Stevie Nicks (Destiny\u2019s Child\u2019s \u201cBootylicious\u201d sampled the rocker\u2019s \u201cEdge of Seventeen,\u201d and Nicks made a cameo in the music video). All signs point to Beyonc\u00e9 ‘s Act III coming soon<\/a>. With rumors that it will include some tribute to the late, great Prince, one of Beyonce\u2019s mentors, in the form of a posthumous collab or an unreleased song sanctioned by Prince\u2019s estate, it\u2019s bound to be another seismic addition to the cultural canon.<\/p>\n
\nJimmy\u00a0Kimmel is again in Republican crosshairs for possibly being psychic. It started with a joke that First Lady Melania Trump<\/a> had the \u201cglow of an expectant widow\u201d days before an apparent assassination attempt against President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Now he\u2019s getting slammed for making a jab at Rudy Giuliani<\/a> rising \u201cfrom the grave to weigh in on the ongoing drama\u201d during his monologue on last Tuesday\u2019s \u201cJimmy Kimmel Live!\u201d \u2026 which happened to be five days before Giuliani was hospitalized<\/a>.\u00a0Kimmel has long been a critic of Trump, which led to\u00a0Kimmel\u2019s show getting suspended last year over comments he made about Charlie Kirk\u2019s assassination. I expect there to be another battle for freedom of speech waged in late night television.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez attend The 2024 Met Gala Celebrating \u201cSleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion\u201d at The Metropolitan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,17976,157,844,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-219465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-column","tag-entertainment","tag-latestnews","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}