Talk about the fashion police!
There was some Met Gala mayhem away from the red carpet when a brouhaha blew up between New York cops and celebrity stylist Jessica Paster outside of the Carlyle. The fashionista claims to Page Six she was “manhandled” while trying to follow NYPD instructions.
Paster was in town for the biggest night in fashion to style famed Olympian Simone Biles, actress Quinta Brunson and model Miranda Kerr.
Just hours before the opulent fete at Metropolitan Museum of Art, a crowd gathered outside the tony Carlyle hotel — where celebs get dressed for the event — hoping to catch a glimpse of an A-lister. But there was a different kind of spectacle when Paster got into a scuffle with police on the scene.
In wild footage captured on a live feed set up by Reuters to video celebs exiting the hotel, a sweatsuit-clad Paster is seen screaming at cops and security, “I’m staying at this hotel,” as they try and hold her from entering the lobby.
In the video, it appears that NYPD officers and security are trying to keep her from one entrance of the hotel — and she then attempts to barge into another door when two cops forcibly grab her and haul her away.
An apparent employee of the hotel then intervenes, video shows, and leads Paster back towards the hotel.
But the top stylist storms back to try and find the policewoman who grabbed her.
“I’m so mad right now,” Paster can be heard yelling, as she snaps a pic of one of the cops. (She also seemingly says she’s going to sue “the New York police.”)
Paster later told Page Six of the incident that she was trying to follow instructions, and that the cops were overzealous.
“I want to say that I am just a person staying at a hotel minding my own business, having the credentials on my wrist and I got manhandled,” she told Page Six.
“I listened to people. They said go through the service door and when I did, they said go back to the lobby. And all of a suddenly they attacked me, they manhandled me.”
Paster says she was hurt in the altercation.
“I am in a lot of pain,” she told us. “She [the cop] is lucky she didn’t break my arms.”
Security at the swanky Upper East Side spot, where rooms go for thousands, was especially high during the event as celebs like Sydney Sweeny, Rihanna and J. Balvin were at the hotel getting ready.
Paster tells us she was given a wristband for hotel access, and that she showed it to police, but they ignored it.
Her assistant also chimed in, saying in Paster’s defense, “Anyone would have the reaction [she did] if they were grabbed out of nowhere after following instructions.”
Paster is a well known stylist in the industry and has been behind the dazzling looks of stars like Emily Blunt and Aubrey Plaza.
A source tells us the video — which first was posted by on Daily Mail, but only identified Paster as a “furious guest” — was the talk of the night, circulating like wildfire amongst fashion industry insiders.
“Literally everyone was sending it to each other,” says one chic source.
The NYPD and the Carlyle did not respond to requests for comment.
The post Celebrity stylist Jessica Paster dragged away by cops outside the Carlyle before Met Gala: ‘I got manhandled’ appeared first on Page Six.
