NEW YORK (AP) — Karl Lagerfeld, the subject of this year’s Met Gala, transformed Chanel from frumpy to modern. He revolutionized the merger of hip-hop culture and high fashion. He dressed and befriended celebrities and transformed once-staid runway shows into masterful, theatrical displays.

He was also a self-proclaimed “big mouth,” publicly sounding off with fatphobia. He spoke against gay men who want to adopt children, migrants, sexual assault survivors, the #MeToo movement and “ugly” people, without apology.

And he left behind the receipts, his own contentious words.

Lagerfeld died in 2019 after dominating the fashion universe into his 80s. Come May 1, his legacy will be on display at the starry fundraising party and its companion exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. Likely not on display, however, will be his polemical tendencies.

“He offended people right and left, making as much of an art out of the cutting aside as the perfectly cut double-face gown,” New York Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman wrote soon after Lagerfeld’s death.

“He judged,” Friedman wrote, “and knew he would be judged himself, but he didn’t care. Rather, he embraced it.”

The choice of Lagerfeld for fashion’s biggest night is not without critics, though gala visionary and close friend Anna Wintour is, clearly, not among them. An emailed request for her comment on this side of Lagerfeld went unreturned.

When 400 or so celebrities and elite from fashion, tech, politics, music, social media, film, TV and sports ascend the Met’s Grand Staircase for the gala, Jameela Jamil won’t be there.

The actor and activist was a rare public figure to condemn the theme, taking to Instagram to acknowledge his fashion genius but denounce his “distinctly hateful” remarks, often toward women.

“Why is THIS who we celebrate when there are so many AMAZING designers out there who aren’t bigoted white men? What happened to everyone’s principles and ‘advocacy.’ You don’t get to stand for justice in these areas, and then attend the celebration of someone who reveled in his own public disdain for marginalized people,” Jamil wrote.

In 2020, a group of internet friends decided to democratize the A-list, invitation-only gala with a Twitter companion that’s open to creators who submit digital fashion in line with the real thing’s annual theme.

Don’t look for the High Fashion Twitter Met Gala this year.

“As we approach the first Monday of May, the hf twitter met gala team would like to announce that we will not be celebrating this year’s met gala as our values don’t align with the selection of Karl Lagerfeld as the theme,” the coordinators tweeted.

Called the “living soul of fashion” by Wintour, Lagerfeld and his gifts were outsized. So were his words.