{"id":835244,"date":"2026-03-19T01:55:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/835244\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T01:55:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:55:20","slug":"bad-lighting-brutal-photos-and-one-very-nervous-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/835244\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Lighting, Brutal Photos, and One Very Nervous Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tVanity Fair<\/a>\u2019s new editor Mark Guiducci had high hopes for his Oscar party Sunday night. Sources at the mag said he\u2019d been obsessively focused on the event since his first day on the job. Fretting that the fabled bash was losing its luster, Guiducci ordered up some major burnishes. Organizers ruthlessly culled the guest list<\/a> like wolves at a sheep\u2019s meadow: \u201cMark only wanted the most AAA-list stars,\u201d says a VF insider. \u201cHe must have gone over that list a thousand times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFormerly welcomed B-listers like media reporters and TV stars were suddenly persona non grata, with exceptions made for Guiducci\u2019s boyfriend, New York Times reporter Shawn McCreesh, and McCreesh\u2019s former boss, Maureen Dowd. But even some high-value targets found themselves\u00a0mysteriously cast out. In a video circulating on Twitter,\u00a0Oscar 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\u2019s bash. Asked about Vanity Fair, she replied with a shrug: \u201cIt\u2019s so weird, even if you\u2019re nominated, it doesn\u2019t mean you can go.\u201c (For the record, Stone was invited).<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tVanity Fair\u2019s Mark Guiducci cuddled up with Nicole Kidman at the magazine\u2019s Oscar party at LACMA.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Vanity Fair<\/p>\n

\n\tAt Guiducci\u2019s direction, this year\u2019s party was moved from its longtime perch at the Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills to brand-new digs at LACMA \u2014 where guests were supposed to get an exclusive first peek at\u00a0the museum\u2019s glittering new David Geffen galleries. But despite LACMA\u2019s best efforts, the area was still unfinished by Oscar night, forcing VF to move the shindig to a decidedly less fabulous wing of the museum.<\/p>\n

\n\tVIP guests complained about the traffic and about the event\u2019s \u201cinfluencer emcees\u201d \u2014 who frequently talked over one another and awkwardly insulted several VIPs. (\u201cHow did you even get this gig?\u201d Kris Jenner wondered to a tongue-tied Jake Shane, who went on to memorably ask Damson Idris if he found the actor who played a terminally ill child in If I Had Legs I\u2019d Kick You \u201cso annoying.\u201d) But what most annoyed partygoers that night\u00a0wasn\u2019t Shane but the blazingly shining lights. (No, not these lights!<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\n\tOld hands at the magazine long have whispered that the secret of the Oscar party\u2019s success has been its near-perfect red carpet<\/a> lighting \u2014 meticulously calibrated to softly and forgivingly cover up the flaws of any guest lucky\u00a0enough to be photographed beneath it.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tTimoth\u00e9e Chalamet in all white on the Vanity Fair carpet.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJamie McCarthy\/WireImage<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been shot at a million parties, but the setup for that party was always sublime,\u201d said one longtime Oscar party fixture. \u201cWhen you posed for the paps at the VF gala, even the ugliest stars knew they\u2019d\u00a0 come out all right. It was like magic!\u201d But, on Sunday night,\u00a0the magic seemed to die. Apparently, in the hasty move to LACMA, someone had forgotten to bring a dimmer.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was so crazy-bright there, I felt like I was standing under klieg lights,\u201d moaned one attendee. Another wondered whether she\u2019d prematurely entered menopause. \u201cIt was like a hundred degrees,\u201d she joked. \u201cI was literally having hot flashes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut 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 \u2014 the photos\u00a0shot there are quickly sent out and viewed by billions of fans across\u00a0the world. But as soon as this year\u2019s photos hit the wires, some stars were aghast at what they saw.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was just so unforgiving,\u201d said a VF insider. \u201cLike 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!\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tKris Jenner at the 2026 Vanity Fair Oscar party.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJamie McCarthy\/WireImage<\/p>\n

\n\tIt didn\u2019t take long for the most unflattering\u00a0photos\u00a0to make their way to Instagram and TikTok, where they were quickly pounced upon by cruel creators and commenters.\u00a0Making matters worse, the glamorous red carpet that traditionally had graced the party had been replaced by a light gray shag that gave off what one Twitter wag described as \u201cLong Island living-room vibes. \u2026 When they brought in the pizzas from Domino\u2019s [a party sponsor], it all suddenly came full circle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI genuinely feel bad for some of these women,\u201d added another tart-tongued guest.\u00a0\u201cOne 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!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, the morning after the Oscars<\/a>, some celebrities opted to post chicer shots snapped at Guy Oseary and Madonna\u2019s annual bash rather than the disappointing red carpet pics from VF.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tHeidi Klum in mellow yellow on the Vanity Fair Oscar party carpet.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLionel Hahn\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, not everyone was disappointed by the event,\u00a0which 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, \u201cFor the first hour, everyone was worried that Mark was having a nervous breakdown.\u201d But, as the evening progressed, the editor\u2019s mood visibly brightened. By the time it was over, Guiducci \u2014 wearing a custom-made green velvet tux whipped up by Savile Row tailor Ralph Fitzgerald \u2014 was canoodlin with his boyfriend at the bar.<\/p>\n

\n\tLuckily for him, most of the guests were more forgiving than the lights. \u201cLook, it had its problems, but it\u2019s also their first time at this locale,\u201d said an empathetic partygoer the following day. \u201cI\u2019ll still go next year if I\u2019m invited, but hopefully they won\u2019t hire the lighting designer who did the 405.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vanity Fair\u2019s new editor Mark Guiducci had high hopes for his Oscar party Sunday night. Sources at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":835245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,77,14673,153075,17094,16,15,32014,239432],"class_list":["post-835244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-oscars","tag-oscars-2026","tag-red-carpet","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-vanity-fair","tag-vanity-fair-oscar-party-2026"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116253355813656545","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/835245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}