Okay so the internet had a whole moment over a 40-second clip, and now we’re all here asking whether Rihanna beefed Tyla at the 2026 Met Gala. Let’s break it down.
The 2026 Met Gala had both Rihanna in Maison Margiela couture, and Tyla, serving a bold Valentino look for the Costume Art theme. Clips started circulating showing Tyla standing nearby while Rihanna appeared to completely ignore her. The internet did not let that go quietly.
Tyla jumped straight on TikTok, barely awake, lying in bed, and addressed everything. “Everyone knows I love Rih,” she started, before revealing this wasn’t even their first awkward encounter. Apparently the year before, she walked up to Rihanna at another event, said hey, and Rihanna replied “hey um… my baby daddy’s calling me” — and then left. Tyla’s response? “Oh. Maybe she was busy.”
At this year’s Met Gala, Tyla said she simply didn’t want to approach again because Rihanna looked occupied. “I didn’t want to go up because I felt like she was busy.” She described feeling awkward, not disrespected.
Then came the second layer. After the event, Rihanna posted a Met Gala recap video using Ayra Starr’s Who’s Dat Girl as the soundtrack, and fans immediately clocked it as a shade at Tyla’s relevance. Which, whether intentional or not, is genuinely a diabolical song choice.
One X user wrote: “At this point, I think the tyla snub was intentional.”
Another replied: “It was, and she is making it very clear.”
Others came to Rihanna’s defence, pointing out she and A$AP Rocky appeared to have a tense moment in their post-event car ride, suggesting she was probably just done with the whole evening.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Rihanna is a woman with three kids who was clearly over the entire event by 11pm. Tyla is someone who grew up idolising her and maybe hoped for a different kind of moment.
Whether it’s a full snub, casual obliviousness, or genuinely unfortunate timing, the song choice isn’t helping Rihanna’s case. At all.
What are your thoughts?
