Kanye West won’t be making a trip to the tailor this month. A source close to the Kardashians tells Us Weekly exclusively that the rapper will not attend the 2018 Met Gala on Monday, May 7, with his wife, Kim Kardashian.
“Kanye is definitely not going,” the source insists.
A second source tells Us that West had been “all over the place about going,” adding, “One minute he says that he will go. Another, he insists that the album needs more work. Kim just wants to go to the gala and have a great time.“
This will be the second consecutive year that West, 40, skips the annual fashion event in New York City. Last year, he instead opted to relax back in Los Angeles in the wake of his nine-day hospitalization for a mental breakdown the previous November.
“He’s at home,” Kardashian, 37, told Vogue’s André Leon Talley during an interview inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the time. “He’s been taking some time off and really loving that.”
The 21-time Grammy winner and the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star made their red carpet debut as a couple at the 2013 Met Gala while she was pregnant with their daughter North, now 4. She showed off her baby bump in a Riccardo Tisci-designed floral Givenchy dress, while her then-boyfriend wore a classic black suit by the same French fashion house.
The couple — who married in Italy in May 2014, and also share son Saint, 2, and daughter Chicago, 3 months — last attended the gala together in 2016. They coordinated in silver Balmain outfits, with Kardashian wearing a long-sleeved gown and West donning a crystal-encrusted jacket over a white T-shirt and ripped jeans.
The news of West’s forthcoming absence comes on the heels of his return to Twitter. In recent weeks, he has come under fire for expressing his support for President Donald Trump and suggesting that slavery was a “choice.” But a source notes in the new issue of Us that the artist “did exactly the same thing the last time he had an album coming out.”
The theme for this year’s Met Gala is Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. The event will be cohosted by Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, Donatella Versace, Rihanna and Amal Clooney.
