Why Rihanna reportedly skipped the 2024 Met Gala despite teasing her look

There’s always next year.

While Rihanna usually arrives fashionably late on the Met Gala red carpet, fans shouldn’t stay up waiting for her arrival this time.

A source told People that the “Diamonds” singer, 36, is sick with the flu and won’t be attending Monday night’s fashion fundraiser at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Rihanna won’t be attending Monday night’s Met Gala. Getty Images

Rihanna rocked a baby bump on the 2023 Met Gala red carpet. AFP via Getty Images

She covered up with a floral coat as she posed with A$AP Rocky. Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue

However, a source tells Page Six Style that Rihanna traveled to NYC after appearing in Miami for the F1 Grand Prix, and her stylist was seen at the Carlyle Hotel greeting the security team that carried her jewels earlier in the day.

Meanwhile, her partner, A$AP Rocky, was seen jogging in a tracksuit and headphones in Soho Monday afternoon while the other A-list stars were getting ready.

And while Rihanna said she would go “real simple” for the “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion”-themed ball, the singer might have taken that dress code to a new level with her stuck-at-the-hotel evening.

Last week, the Fenty Beauty founder teased her non-finalized look in an interview with “Extra,” saying, “It’s gonna come to what my makeup and what my hair is going to do. We wanna play with that, but I have no idea what I’m gonna do with that.”

She went with a bold black look for the 2021 event. Getty Images

The singer glowed in gold for the 2015 Met Gala. ZUMAPRESS.com

She wore a Pope-like look for the 2018 fashion fundraiser. Getty Images for The Hollywood Reporter

She indeed played with her hair in the lead-up to the Met Gala, as she stepped out with bubblegum pink-hued hair at a Puma event in Miami over the weekend.

Despite her reputation as a certified style icon, the “Work” songstress recently admitted that the “Fashion Killa” rapper — with whom she shares sons RZA, 1, and Riot, 9 months — puts her to shame when it comes to clothes.

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“I be feeling bummy as s—t next to this man. I feel like, goddamn, I look like his assistant,” she told Interview last month.

Stylish as Rocky may be, Rihanna is the undisputed queen of the Met Gala, and her envelope-pushing ensembles always land on countless best-dressed lists.

Rihanna went for a black lace look in 2011. ZUMAPRESS.com

She bloomed in a colorful petal-like dress in 2017. Getty Images

The star rocked pink hair in Miami over the weekend. Jojo Korsh/BFA.com/Shutterstock

Perhaps her most iconic is the spectacular fur-trimmed yellow Guo Pei cape gown she wore for the 2015 “China: Through the Looking Glass”-themed event, which weighed a whopping 55 pounds and sparked memes aplenty.

And who could forget the bejeweled pope look by Maison Margiela Artisanal she wore to co-chair the “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination”-themed event in 2018?

In 2021, Rihanna and Rocky made their red carpet debut at the “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion” gala in coordinating cloaked creations — hers by Balenciaga, his from ERL.

While the “Diamonds” singer skipped the Met the following year (where she was honored with a virtual statue), she returned in 2023 while pregnant with Riot, dressed in a dramatic white Valentino gown with a camellia-covered cape.

Let’s hope for a 2025 comeback.