Lindsey Vonn is back on the red carpet — and in heels! — three months after her horrific ski crash at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
On Monday, May 4, the professional skier attended the Met Gala, her first appearance in over a decade, alongside designer Thom Browne, who even designed her can she used to walk.
Her attendance comes following a slew of painful leg surgeries, after having crashed while skiing on a ruptured ACL at the Olympics.
For the momentous night out, Lindsey wore a beaded, white mermaid gown with a large tulle trim and long sleeves, accompanied by a cane adorned with Thom Browne’s signature logo.
“They spent 4000 hours to make this dress,” she told E! News on the red carpet, adding: “There’s a lot of moments where I didn’t know where I would be or where I would get to, and getting to this place is really special. So I’m very thankful.”
She also told Entertainment Tonight that there were “many many times” she thought she wouldn’t make it to the famed, glitzy fundraiser. “It’s been a really tough few months, but I’m here, I’m walking, Thom made me feel so beautiful tonight.”
© Gettty ImagesLindsey also recently spoke to NPR about why she decided to compete at the Olympics in the first place, even after having had a knee replacement. “My age didn’t mean I lost my ability to ski fast,” she maintained, noting it felt “really good to be back on top again.”
“When they told me I tore my ACL,” a week before the Olympics, she continued, “I didn’t miss a beat, I didn’t come all this way to just stop trying.”
However she acknowledged that her ACL had a part in her devastating Olympics crash. “Because of my ACL I couldn’t rely on certain aspects of my skiing that I normally would and so I was trying to make a calculated plan” to make up time.
© Getty ImagesShe was left with a complex fracture on her left leg that came with dangerous complications, among them the possibility of an amputation, and she also broke her right angle, needing several emergency surgeries in the Italy ICU before she could be flown back home to the U.S.
© Instagram“The pain was almost unbearable, but I felt like there were mental low points that were much worse. The amount of time in a wheelchair and just being unable to do really anything without someone taking care of me. I’m a very independent person and I don’t want to burden anybody and I felt like I was a constant burden,” she further shared.
It’s exactly why she decided to share her recovery journey on social media. “I thought it was some of the most introspective thought and posting that I have ever done and I thought it was actually really therapeutic for me because I felt I had so many emotions that I wanted to share with people and it was really the only way for me to do that,” she said.
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