How to Watch Zendaya Win the 2024 Met Gala Red Carpet

Aaah, Zendaya. Oakland-born goddess. Desert warrior of Dune. Marvel mistress. Disney star. Dazzling denizen of red carpets everywhere. All this, and on May 6, Zendaya is stepping out in a brand new role: co-chair of the Met Gala.

What does a Met Gala co-chair do exactly? Well, basically, it means you’re hand-picked by (let’s be real) scary Vogue editor Anna Wintour to help make decisions about the gala’s theme (Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion), dinner and performers. This year, Zendaya was selected along with J.Lo, Bad Bunny and Chris Hemsworth for the job. And sure, OK, we might be a teeny bit biased, but if this red carpet is a contest (and we all know that it is), Zendaya is going to win the night.

How do we know? The following 5 reasons.

1. Zendaya at the 2019 Met Gala

The last time Zendaya attended the Met Gala, she did a literal magic trick on the red carpet. The theme that year was Camp: Notes on Fashion. She teamed up with Tommy Hilfiger to come up with this light-up Cinderella moment, which nods to her beginnings as a Disney Channel child star.

If Zendaya did this for Camp, just think what she’s going to do as host for Sleeping Beauties. More ethereal glory awaits!

2. Zendaya at the 2018 Met Gala

The theme of the 2018 Met Gala was Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & The Catholic Imagination. Kim Kardashian showed up in a gold gown with a cross stuck on the hip. Katy Perry wore a gold gown with giant wings attached. Sarah Jessica Parker donned a gold gown with a miniature chapel on her head. Cardi B accessorized her gold gown with a halo thing on her face. Then Zendaya rolled up like, “Hold my sword, chumps,” in this nod to Joan of Arc badassery. Combining strength and elegance has never looked so cool.

3. Zendaya at the 2017 Met Gala

In honor of 2017’s Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art Of The In-Between theme, Zendaya showed up on the Met Gala steps wearing a Dolce & Gabbana parrot-themed gown and — more importantly — her hair in a beautiful, exaggerated afro. That style choice was made just two years after Guiliana Rancic had said the actress’ dreadlocks at the 2015 Academy Awards made her look like she “smells like patchouli oil or weed.”

In a since-removed post on Instagram, Zendaya responded to Rancic, noting: “I was hit with ignorant slurs and pure disrespect … To say that an 18-year-old young woman with locs must smell of patchouli oil or ‘weed’ is not only a large stereotype but outrageously offensive. I don’t usually feel the need to respond to negative things but certain remarks cannot go unchecked.”

There can be little doubt that this 2017 Met Gala hair moment was a middle finger to fashion white supremacy — and it was glorious.

4. Zendaya at the 2016 Met Gala

The theme was Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. Zendaya channeled Alicia Vikander in Ex Machina but made it high fashion. In the process, she reminded us that Michael Kors still occasionally makes genuinely cool clothing — a feat even more spectacular than making helmet hair seem like a good idea.

5. Zendaya at every ‘Challengers’ promo

How do you make tennis sexy? Aside from having Luca Guadagnino make a movie about three very hot young people doing an unethical throuple between bouts of sweaty on-the-court action? Zendaya has been offering a masterclass for months now, as she promotes that movie — Challengers — in a series of outfits that nod to the demure formalwear tennis prides itself on and making it, well, kinda slutty. Game, set, match, lady. Game, set, match.

You can watch Zendaya — and everyone else, I guess — arrive at the Met Gala on May 6, 2024. Cable subscribers can see the action live on E! starting at 6 p.m., while everyone else can catch it on Vogue’s livestream, starting at 3 p.m.