The 2020 Met Gala was scheduled to take place on Monday, but like just about everything else in 2020, it was canceled as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Still, the week brought with it many reflections on galas past. Of course, as years go by, memories tend to diverge, leading to very different accounts of the same event.
Case in point, in a piece published by Vogue this week, the magazine’s creative digital director Sally Singer offered a salacious recollection of the 2007 Met Gala.
“At dinner it was suddenly like, whoa, Jessica Simpson’s breasts are across from me at the dinner table and they are on a platter and I’m looking at them,” Singer said.
“And John Mayer was putting his hands on them at the dinner table,” she continued.
“He kind of reached down and I just remember thinking, ‘Oh, celebrities, feel free to play here. That’s what’s going on’.”
Simpson was quick to respond with a sharp rebuttal on Instagram.
Alongside a famous black-and-white photo of Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield, Jessica accused Singer of body-shaming with an inaccurate description of the evening’s events:
“Feeling a little like Jayne Mansfield after reading this (inaccurate!) oral history of the #MetBall where I am body shamed by #SallySinger,” she wrote.
“I have persevered through shaming my own body and internalizing the world’s opinions about it for my entire adult life,” Simpson added.
“To read this much anticipated article about the classiest fashion event there is, and have to be shamed by another woman for having boobs in 2020, is nauseating.”
Singer has yet to respond to the allegation, but Jessica has received an outpouring of support on Instagram:
“TELL EM MAMA,” one person wrote.
“Wow. She definitely could’ve left that ‘story’ out. Unnecessary and mean…Keep being you.”
In the memoir she published in February, Simpson described Mayer as “sexually obsessed” with her, during their relationship.
So in all likelihood, if such an event had transpired, she probably would have shared it with the world herself.
Simpson has been praised for the candor of her memoir, in which she opened up about her struggles with alcoholism, as well as the sexual abuse she endured in her youth.
Baring your soul to the world only to have a relative stranger one-up you with further claims about your life can’t be a good feeling.
Fortunately, Simpson wasn’t shy in clapping back against this inaccurate recollection of her past.