- Blake Lively announced last week that she wouldn't be attending the Met Gala.
- Last night she shared a photo of what she was doing instead — pumping at home.
While Hollywood A-listers gathered at the Met Gala, the world's premier fashion event, actress Blake Lively — typically a star of the red carpet — was doing something that would look familiar to many moms: pumping milk for her newborn.
"First Monday in May," Lively wrote on an Instagram story posted the same night as the gala.
Lively is a mom of four, including a baby born earlier this year. Details about the baby are scarce — Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, haven't announced the newborn's name or gender. The only announcement of the birth was an Instagram post in mid-February that showed Lively without a baby bump. In addition to the new baby, Lively and Reynolds are parents to three daughters: James, 8; Inez, 6; and Betty, 3.
Lively's absence was expected
It wasn't a surprise that Lively missed the Met Gala. She told reporters last Thursday that they wouldn't see her on the red carpet without giving a specific reason.
"But I will be watching," she said, according to People. When a reporter complimented her outfit from last year, an incredible dress that transformed into two distinct looks, she joked.
"Thank you, that's very sweet," she said. "I'll be wearing that on my couch on Monday."
Fans have become used to seeing Lively at the Met Gala — she's attended the fundraiser almost every year since 2008. During those 15 years, her red-carpet outfits have been showstoppers. The Met Gala was also the first place that Lively and Reynolds appeared at a red-carpet event as an item, back in 2014, People reported.
Lively has said that breastfeeding is a 'full-time job'
While Lively didn't say that her newest addition was why she missed the gala, her pumping post implied it. In the past, Lively has been open about the challenges of being a nursing mom. After James was born, Lively said in an interview with Allure that breastfeeding was her "full-time job."
"I'm, like, driving down the road, pumping," she said.
In the same interview, she talked about the pressure that actresses have to "bounce back" and be red-carpet ready after giving birth.
"It is unfair," she said. "I think it's just as frustrating to see women asked questions all the time about how they lost their baby weight and then [the media] spins that to be, 'This is the only way.' Or, they make it seem like, 'You have to breast-feed and only breast-feed.' Or, 'You have to give birth this way versus that way.'"
In 2020, after Betty was born, Lively shared another pumping photo, that time while promoting the movie "The Rhythm Section."
Despite the extra work involved with raising four kids, Lively told Forbes that motherhood has boosted her confidence, which benefits her career.
"Having children for me made me feel so much more in my skin," she said. "I never felt more myself or at ease in my own body or more confident — not to say that there aren't a bevy of insecurities coming at me a million times a day, but I just feel incredibly settled."