OK, That Actually Was Jared Leto This Time

With all due respect to Lil Nas X, Jared Leto is the viral king of the Met Gala. Whether he’s twinning with Alessandro Michele or carrying a prosthetic replica of his own head, the actor goes to unparalleled lengths to make headlines on the Met red carpet. Which helps explain why last year, every major news outlet (even The New York Times!) mistook Swedish fashion influencer Fredrik Robertsson, who was wearing an outlandish Iris van Herpen couture look, for Leto early on in the evening.

But tonight, at the 2023 Met Gala—with its dress code theme in honor of the late designer Karl Lagerfeld—Leto is not wearing Gucci, or van Herpen, or any other discernible luxury designer in Vogue Runway’s Rolodex. Instead, he arrived on the carpet wearing an incredibly intricate feline costume made in the likeness of Lagerfeld’s famed Birman, Choupette.

Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Or, as Nick Jonas put it to Vogue on the red carpet: “Jared Leto showed up as a furry.”

To be fair, Leto was not the sole Choupette on the carpet. Doja Cat went the Animorphs route, wearing feline-like face prosthetics and a beaded cat-eared cap with her Oscar de la Renta gown. It’s almost like Doja Cat and Jared Leto went to the Spirit Halloween store together and each chose one of the two different costume options: Realistic Choupette or Sexy Choupette. Different approaches, similarly wild results.

Originally Appeared on GQ