Did the Met Gala fumble how it handled its South Asian megastars?
Shah Rukh Khan made his Met Gala debut a week ago — but it wasn't his presence that made headlines. Rather, it was his reception by an audience seemingly not familiar with his level of fame.
Just how famous is Khan, nicknamed the "King of Bollywood"? In a word: Very.
Snigdha Sur, founder and CEO of The Juggernaut, a South Asian diaspora media company, calls Khan the “most famous Indian man to come out of Bollywood.”
Jeremy Franco, an Indian TikToker, likens his fame to other megastars — combined, that is. “His fan base is bigger than Beyoncé, BTS and Messi’s combined,” he tells TODAY.com.
Shah Rukh Khan attends the 2025 Met Gala Celebrating "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 5, 2025 in New York City. (Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images)
“Try to imagine a level of fame so large that crowds of hundreds —sometimes thousands — gather outside your home every single day. That’s SRK’s reality in India,” actor Zainne Saleh, who starred in “Deli Boys” recently, tells TODAY.com. "For context, think of cultural icons from another era — The Beatles or Michael Jackson. That’s the level of adoration felt for him by millions around the world.”
Khan’s career in Bollywood began in the late '80s and took off when he played a series of romantic heroes in Bollywood romances, including the charming lead of “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge,” India’s longest-running movie.
He was one of three Bollywood stars who made their Met Gala debut this year, alongside Kiara Advani and Diljit Dosanjh, per the Associated Press. Other known figures in India also returned to the Met Gala this year, like Isha Ambani, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Natasha Poonawalla.
But it was Khan’s presence that sparked controversy, as some fans felt he had been downgraded from one of the world's most famous men to just another Met Gala attendee by journalists seemingly not familiar with his legacy.
In one viral clip that stirred a reaction, a journalist asked Khan's name. Then, during Khan’s interview with Vogue red carpet live stream, Sabyasachi, the designer of Khan's outfit for the evening, clarified his level of fame to interviewers Teyana Taylor and Ego Nwodim.
“Just to give you a little bit of context, Shah Rukh Khan is probably one of the most famous men in the world. His fan following is legendary and we nearly had a stampede outside of the hotel when he came out,” Sabyasachi told the interviewers.
After the appearance, there was a “ton of chatter” about Khan’s appearance at the Met Gala amid the Bollywood community, Sur says.
Having the rare opportunity to interview him “should have been an incredible moment — “instead, it felt like interviewers didn’t even know who he was,” she says.
Taylor and Ngowdim did open the interview by acknowledging that Khan was the “first male Bollywood actor to attend the Met Gala” and asking what it was like to “make history.” So what was so upsetting about the way Khan was received? Franco believes that fans picked up on “the energy that was given.” He says that “the energy level was just very, very minimal.”
The chatter about the moment has been spreading around the Internet quickly, with many fans upset about the way his interviews were conducted.
“Shah Rukh Khan getting barely 3 seconds at the Met Gala is criminal, but that interviewer not knowing who he was? Truly embarrassing, outrageous and disrespectful,” one fan tweeted. Another called not knowing who he is as “cultural erasure.”
Other commentators didn’t see the issue. One tweeted, “There was NOTHING disrespectful about the Shah Rukh Khan interview at the Met Gala with Ego and Teyana. Did they need to kiss his a-- to be okay? Y’all need to check yourselves, designer included. no one was humbling him for y’all to do all that.”
Saleh says, more than anything, the controversy pointed to a “cultural disconnect.”
Shah Rukh Khan and his designer Sabyasachi at the Met Gala. (Getty Images)
“It’s fascinating that someone can be so beloved yet still so virtually unknown within a media space as massive as the American one. It’s a reminder of how fragmented global fame still is — and how moments like this, with a little help from social media, can spark meaningful conversations across cultures,” she says.
“Thx Sabyasachi & ur whole team for introducing me to the Met Gala,” he tweeted. “It’s not my ‘space’ but u made me feel so comfortable…becos u, like me, believe…Style & Fashion…is just being who you are. And all of u made me feel like a ‘K’!”
This response seems to be in line with what Sur knows of Khan. She says that Khan hasn’t “sought Western validation,” so she was unsurprised that this was his first Met Gala appearance.
“Shah Rukh Khan has always been more than satisfied with his huge market in India,” she adds.
