Since February 2022, our firm has brought a total of 10 lawsuits against Amazon.com, Inc., on behalf of the families of 28 individuals who are dead because the company chose profit over people. Our founder Carrie Goldberg reflects on this year’s Met gala and the role of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and wife Lauren Sánchez as the lead sponsors and honorary co-chairs of the lavish event.
The backlash surrounding Jeff Bezos’ role in this year’s Met Gala is a story about what happens when the institution that will sell you anything meets the institution that will celebrate anyone with deep enough pockets.
I am an attorney who represents families whose children are dead because Amazon sold them suicide kits. For years, I have been in court arguing that Amazon knowingly sold high-concentration sodium nitrite — a chemical with no household purpose — to vulnerable people, bundling it with anti-vomiting pills and a manual and delivering it to their doors. The Washington Supreme Court recently ruled that Amazon can be held liable.
For years Amazon denied responsibility, said they could not be sued, and called this a “misuse of a product.” I have sat across from the families of the deceased, who call it what it is: online retailers selling death.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the most powerful cultural institutions in the world. Every photo from the event is a statement about who we have decided to celebrate and what we have decided to overlook. Institutions with that kind of reach have a responsibility to know whose reputation they are rehabilitating, and at whose expense.
The families I represent don’t get a red carpet. They get a grave.
