Vanity Fair’s Oscar Party Light-Mare

Jane Fonda and Mia Goth Vanity Fair Party Lighting Lionel Hahn/Getty Images; Lionel Hahn/Getty Images Logo text

Vanity Fair’s new editor Mark Guiducci had high hopes for his Oscar party Sunday night. Sources at the mag said he’d been obsessively focused on the event since his first day on the job. Fretting that the fabled bash was losing its luster, Guiducci ordered some up some major burnishments. Organizers ruthlessly culled the guest list like wolves at a sheep’s meadow: “Mark only wanted the most AAA-list stars,” says a VF insider. “He must have gone over that list 1,000 times.”

Formerly welcomed B-listers like media reporters and TV stars were suddenly persona non grata, with exceptions made for Guiducci’s boyfriend, New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh, and McCreesh’s former boss, Maureen Dowd. But even some high-value targets found themselves mysteriously cast out. In a video circulating on Twitter, Oscar nominee Emma Stone was questioned about her apres-Oscar plans. She said she was jumping on a big bus with her Bugonia peers to stop by the Universal Pictures party before heading to A24’s bash. Asked about Vanity Fair, she replied with a shrug: “It’s so weird, even if you’re nominated, it doesn’t mean you can go.”

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Vanity Fair’s Mark Guiducci cuddles up with Nicole Kidman at the magazine’s Oscar party at LACMA. Courtesy of Vanity Fair

At Guiducci’s direction, this year’s party was moved from its longtime perch at the Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills to brand-new digs at LACMA — where guests were supposed to get an exclusive first peek at the museum’s glittering new David Geffen galleries. But despite LACMA’s best efforts, the galleries were still unfinished by Oscar night, forcing VF to move the shindig to a decidedly less fabulous wing of the museum.

VIP guests complained about the traffic and about the event’s “influencer emcees” — who frequently talked over one another and awkwardly insulted several VIPs. (“How did you even get this gig?” Kris Jenner wondered to a tongue-tied Jake Shane, who went on to memorably ask Damson Idris if he found the actor who played the terminally ill child in If I Had Legs I’d Kid You “so annoying.” Idris did not appear in that film.) But what most annoyed partygoers that night wasn’t Shane but the brightly shining lights. (No, not these lights!)

Old hands at the magazine have long whispered that the secret of the Oscar party’s success has been its near-perfect red carpet lighting — meticulously calibrated to softly and forgivingly cover up the flaws of all the guests lucky enough to be photographed beneath it.

Timothee Chalamet is all white at the Vanity Fair Oscar party red carpet. Jamie McCarthy/WireImage

“I’ve been shot at a million parties, but the setup for that party was always sublime,” said one longtime Oscar party fixture. “When you posed for the paps at the VF gala, even the ugliest stars knew they’d come out all right. It was like magic!” But, on Sunday night, the magic seemed to die. Apparently, in the hasty move to LACMA, someone had forgotten to bring a dimmer.

“It was so crazy bright there, I felt like I was standing under klieg lights,” moaned one attendee. Another wondered whether she’d prematurely entered menopause. “It was like a hundred degrees,” she joked. “I was literally having hot flashes.”

But not everyone was as jovial. Stars spend small fortunes and deploy large armies of stylists to put their best faces forward at the annual party — the photos shot there are quickly sent out and viewed by billions of fans across the world. But as soon as this year’s photos hit the wires, some stars were aghast at what they saw.

“It was just so unforgiving,” said a VF insider. “Like being shot in extremely high-def. You saw a lot of excess pounds and wrinkles that used to be hidden. Nobody wants to be photographed like that!”

Kris Jenner strikes a pose at the 2026 Vanity Fair Oscar party. Jamie McCarthy/WireImage

It didn’t take long for the most unflattering photos to make their way to Instagram and TikTok, where they were quickly pounced upon by cruel creators and commenters. Making matters worse, the glamorous red carpet that had traditionally graced the party had been replaced by a light gray shag that gave off what one Twitter wag described as “Long Island living-room vibes. … When they brought in the pizzas from Domino’s [a party sponsor], it all suddenly came full circle.”

“I genuinely feel bad for some of these women,” added another tart-tongued guest. “One poor actress looked like a Diane Arbus character. She was on her phone looking at her pictures and shrieking at her publicist. I heard that she went home and cried herself to sleep. Nobody has heard from her since!”

Heidi Klum in mellow yellow at the Vanity Fair Oscar party red carpet. Lionel Hahn/Getty Images

Of course, not everyone was disappointed by the event, which was catered by celebrity chefs from L.A. hotspot Mother Wolf and brought out the usual impressive constellation of stars. According to a VF insider, “For the first hour, everyone was worried that Mark was having a nervous breakdown.” But as the evening progressed, the editor’s mood visibly brightened. By the time it was over, he had ditched his custom-made green velvet tux jacket, whipped up by Savile Row tailor Ralph Fitzgerald, to canoodle with his boyfriend at the bar.

Luckily for him, most of the guests were more forgiving than the lights. “Look, it had its problems, but it’s also their first time at this locale,” said an empathetic partygoer the next day. “I’ll still go next year if I’m invited, but hopefully they won’t hire the lighting designer who did the 405.”