A quick note to readers: Normally, Thursday’s story runs behind a paywall. However, I’m making today’s timely issue free so everyone can read what labor organizer and activist Chris Smalls has to say about his arrest at the Met Gala Monday night. This is the kind of piece you won’t find in a Condé Nast publication, and I hope it shows why independent outlets like this one are so vital. To support independent journalism like this, upgrade to a Premium subscription.

An unprecedentedly unpopular Met Gala, funded by Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sánchez, resulted in a protester Teen Vogue once praised spending the night in jail.

That protester is activist and labor organizer Chris Smalls. He was arrested Monday night after jumping a barricade near the arrivals carpet, and released after 24 hours and charged with two misdemeanors, which could be dismissed if he is not arrested again for six months.

“I made it over [one], but the second one was a little more difficult,” said Smalls in a phone interview Thursday. The former president of the Amazon Labor Union, the first union in the U.S. for Amazon workers, Smalls carried a sign that pointed out that Bezos and Amazon have refused to negotiate a union contract for over 1,500 days. “This was an opportunity for me and my union to really spread awareness and remind them that they need to come to the table and negotiate a contract.” (Just last month, the National Labor Relations Board ordered Amazon to bargain with the union.)

Smalls also wanted to draw attention to Amazon’s technology being used by ICE, a message used in many of the activist group Everyone Hate’s Elon’s anti-Met Gala demonstrations. And he wanted to draw attention to Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion contract under which Amazon, along with Google, provides technology to the Israeli government, like artificial intelligence and cloud services. (Google has faced employee protests over Nimbus.) Smalls spent five days in an Israeli prison last summer after he traveled to Gaza to deliver food, medicine, and other supplies to Palestinians.

After Smalls started organizing, Vice News obtained notes from an executive meeting at Amazon presided over by Bezos detailing plans to portray him as “not smart or articulate.” The publicity only made Smalls the face of the Amazon organizing movement and one of the most famous activists in the country. He was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2022, appeared on the cover of New York magazine, and featured in Condé Nast publications Teen Vogue and GQ.

Smalls says Bezos “was successful in changing my life forever, but not destroying it.” I talked to him about what happened on Monday night, what he would say to Anna Wintour, his thoughts on Lauren Sánchez, and more.

What happened on Monday night?

I didn't really have a clear plan. Obviously with all of the poverty that's surrounding the Met Gala, especially under this administration, it's just really upsetting and dystopian that billionaires and celebrities feel like [attending] a fashion party fundraiser that's raising millions of dollars when people are living check to check. There’s definitely a disconnect there, and that's why I did what I did.

You jumped a barrier, I read?

My goal was to spread awareness and to protest. Jumping the barrier was the only way that I was going to get the attention that I needed. They allow people to protest. They're at the Met Gala every year. But I wanted to do more than just stand there with a sign. I actually wanted to make it onto the red carpet. That was my goal.

With your sign?

Yeah, of course. It’s very difficult when I don't know the layout. I've never been invited. I'm not in the Met Gala world or fashion world like that.

I'm very fashionable. I know that part. But as far as red carpet events, over the past couple of years, especially because I've been speaking out for Palestine, I've been canceled in all of these spaces. So for me, obviously not having $100,000 to attend, jumping the barrier was the only thing I could do.

Or having Anna Wintour’s approval to attend.

Yeah, I ain’t getting that anymore.

Then what happened after you were arrested?

Deliberately, they took me to a precinct in Harlem — not the Central Park Precinct — but I spent the night in Central Booking, 24 hours.

Why do you think the Bezoses are paying for the Met Gala? I think they're trying to seem cool and glamorous and make us forget about the things people don't like about Big Tech and billionaires. I don't know that it's working. There may be people who are not as clued in to political issues who see a picture here and there and are like, “That's kind of cool that Zuckerberg and Bezos are there.” But I think the fact that Bezos and the Zuckerberg did not walk the red carpet says something, too.

I think it's a way for them to rebrand themselves, with all of the controversy and things that they do that are negative. And I think they paid their way into the Met. That's just what it is. They donated $10 million or something like that?

Yes, that’s the reporting.

Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are not fashionable people. We all know this. They've never been in the fashion world. So I get it. His wife, Lauren Sánchez, is a Kardashian-light. She's the bestie of Kim, or whatever. But even with her — where'd she come from? She dated a football player, and then she was the sidechick for Jeff Bezos, just destroyed his marriage, basically. He had the largest divorce in history because of her, and he had to stay with her. And it's just a facade and a way of rebranding themselves.

Obviously, it's not going to work. Jeff Bezos is not a good person. Billionaires are not good people. You can't become that rich without exploitation. They're exploiting their workers at Amazon, but they're also exploiting the fashion industry now.

I think we won a small victory by him not showing up [on the red carpet]. He doesn’t deserve to be there. Prior to the Met Gala, there were a couple of events where I showed up, and they snuck him out through other ways. I was waiting outside the door at the [New York Times] Deal Book Summit last year. And I saw Prince Harry, Mark Zuckerberg, all these elites come out the door, but the only one who didn't was Jeff Bezos.

I think with the protests I've been doing leading up [to the Met], with that organization Everyone Hates Elon, when we projected the messaging on his penthouse, he was aware that I was on his case.

Everyone Hates Elon’s protests were very effective — I’ve never seen this kind of reaction to the Met Gala in my nearly 20 years covering it.

Everything's about timing. And this is the perfect time to accost a billionaire like Jeff Bezos, who, once again, doesn't belong in the fashion industry. When you're a billionaire, you have all the money and power to put into all of these crises, whether it's homelessness here in New York City, healthcare. They choose, because of greed, not to care. That's why we have to do what we do as activists.

Why do you think that the public response was what it was? What do you think it is about this moment in time that the public was really on the side of the protestors?

I'm still catching up. My phone has been insane. I gained about 70,000 followers on Instagram. I honestly didn't know being locked up, but I'm so happy that people are waking up in America. I think the times that we're living in right now are so unprecedented. I think people are waking up to the fact that these billionaires and elites and celebrities are not feeling the pain of the average American.

That's why I think public opinion is starting to favor protesters, because everybody's struggling. Sixty percent of Americans are living check to check. New York City [ranks number one in the country for homelessness]. There's so much grief with the Trump administration and ICE and the job market and economy and these wars that are causing prices of gas and food to go up. Everybody is feeling pressured, and pressure busts pipes.

This was an opportunity for everybody to be on the same side for one common cause and realize that money and greed and power is destroying our humanity.

If you could talk to Anna Wintour, what would you say?

I would just tell her to do better. I'm not, once again, historically known for the fashion industry, but I'm very fashionable and knowledgeable. But I read certain things about how the Met Gala lost its way. I read that she had some type of crisis, emergency meeting. And I'm like, good, that's great. I hope she has a moral compass to understand that what she's doing is a disconnect from what the Met Gala was meant to be. And I hope she does some soul-searching for next year, because it won't stop. This is something that is not going to be a one and done thing. I'm not saying that it'll be me protesting next year, but it'll be somebody until they change course. I hope that she gets the message and read the room very well.

And next time, don’t invite billionaires — invite people in the working class to be a part of the Met.

That point was made elsewhere, at least — Zohran Mamdani did a story with i-D spotlighting other fashion workers in the city.

Everybody contributed in their own way in protesting. I'm still trying to catch up. People are sending me stuff every day, like, "Oh, this celebrity spoke." I just shared a video of the woman from The Devil Wears Prada —

Molly Rogers, the costume designer. I moderated a discussion with her yesterday at Fashionphile and an audience member asked her if fashion is art pegged to the Met Gala, and she said your protest is art.

That's what we need, people of that stature and prominence. We need them to speak up and I'm glad that's happening.

What do you make of Condé Nast featuring you in its publications, GQ and Teen Vogue, yet this week you got dragged away from its marquee event by police?

I think it's amazing that I can reach different spaces now, even as a labor organizer. And I think that's the problem with the labor movement as well — we're so small and we're in a different realm when it comes to reaching the younger generation.

I try to use my platform, always have, to make statements, whether it's fashion, music, culture, arts, food. I try to connect the labor movement to all of these industries, and I think we need more of it. We need our more independent media. We need more journalism that's going to cover these struggles.

Can you explain the activist work you’ve done on behalf of the fashion industry?

Absolutely. Sara Ziff has invited me several times over the years to stand in solidarity with [the Model Alliance] when they've been fighting for their bills to be passed in New York State. So I was with them in ‘22, I was with them in ‘23. I heard all of their stories. It's just terrible, the things they went through with Harvey Weinstein, with Jeffrey Epstein, and so many other of these fashion companies that had exploited them for years. I always stood side by side with them. I was actually just talking to Sara yesterday, texting her. She is a great leader of her organization.

And she's been doing this for so long, over a decade. As a labor organizer in a different industry, it's important that we stand side by side, and I'm so honored to always uplift their struggles as women. Exploitation is exploitation. In order for people to become as rich as Jeff Bezos, they can't do that without exploitation. So once again, there's more to come. We're not done and we're going to continue to fight for our rights.

And you have a book coming out in about a month. So if people want to support you, they can pre-order your book.

June 1st. When the Revolution Comes: A Fight for the Future of the Working Class. I hope it sells number one on Amazon. That would be funny.

Follow Chris Smalls on Instagram.

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