A gross-out protest rocked this year'sMet Galaafter more than 300 'pee bottles' were discovered hidden throughout the halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The glitz and glamour of the 2026 event was disrupted by activists who placed plastic bottles filled with a yellow liquid, initially believed to be urine, across the venue.
This coordinated stunt was aimed squarely atJeff Bezos, the 62-year-old Amazon founder and billionaire, following the appointment of his wife,Lauren Sánchez Bezos, as an honorary co-chair of the fashion world's most anticipated night.
Organised by the UK-based advocate group Everyone Hates Elon, the protest served as a jarring juxtaposition to the evening's high-fashion 'Fashion is Art' theme. While some onlookers found the display unnecessarily crude, the organisers insist there is a deep and serious meaning behind the 'gross-out' tactics.
Before the 'pee bottles,' the activist group had already launched acitywide boycott campaign, plastering posters across New York and projecting messages onto Bezos' Fifth Avenue residence and landmarks like the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building, denouncing the event as 'billionaire-backed fashion theater.'
But the 'pee bottles' are the biggest stunt from the group yet for this high-fashion event. The bottles with Bezos' face on them were scattered and hidden inside the museum, as reported byThe Mirror US.
In a statement, Everyone Hates Elon said, 'Amazon founder and oligarch Jeff Bezos just finished his Met Gala pre-party at his penthouse and is getting ready for the big night.' They added, 'We couldn't let him get away with using celebrity and fashion to hide his crimes. We're exposing them instead.'
Outside, the Met Museum, the group also placed a basket full of plastic bottles as a 'Met Gala VIP toilet' with a sign that reads: 'Installed in honor of Met Gala chair Jeff Bezos. Go ahead, it's good enough for his staff.'
Although the protest may appear 'gross,' as the group placed 'hundreds of piss bottles,' the liquid inside them was not actual urine. Instead, each sealed bottle contained water and food colouring, as clearly indicated on the labels, and posed no threat to the public.
The 'pee bottles' stunt was a direct reference to a long-standing controversy surrounding Amazon's workplace culture, with allegations that delivery drivers were treated unfairly and forced to urinate in bottles in order to meet delivery goals.
The company's history with this issue is well-documented. In 2021, it initially mocked reports of the practice on social media, responding to a claim by saying, 'If that were true, nobody would work for us.' Amazon later issued aformal apology, acknowledging that drivers sometimes resort to bottles due to a lack of accessible public restrooms.
Source: International Business Times UK
