Mayor Eric Adams appeared to be in a better mood Tuesday evening — hours after fuming about media coverage at City Hall — as he hobnobbed with Conde Nast exec Anna Wintour and other celebrities at a star-studded Michael Kors New York Fashion Week event.
The normally nattily attired Adams — wearing a light blue paisley blazer, navy slacks, turquoise polka dot socks and black mask — sat next to Wintour and actor Ariana DeBose in a front row that also featured Blake Lively at the lavish affair held in Hell’s Kitchen’s Terminal 5.
Adams appeared chipper as he chatted with a wide-smiling DeBose, a Broadway and film star, and Wintour, Vogue’s editor in chief.
The mayor’s cheery appearance with celebrities came hours after he aggrievedly unloaded on reporters in an unprompted rant, blasting the Big Apple’s media outlets over what he characterized as a dearth of racial diversity — but also for covering his trip to Albany that failed to get movement on bail reform laws.
“I’m a black man that’s the mayor but my story is being interpreted by people that don’t look like me,” fumed Adams at City Hall ahead of a press conference on a summer youth job program expansion.
“How many blacks are on editorial boards? How many blacks determine how these stories are being written?” he said. “How many Asians? How many East Asians? How many South Asians? Everyone talks about my government being diversified, what’s the diversification in the newsrooms?”
Adams went on to tell reporters, “Diversify your newsrooms so I can look out and see people who look like me.”
Adams also attempted to paint a more flattering picture of his visit to Albany, claiming journalists had produced unfairly negative stories based on a predetermined narrative.
“I went to the Assembly conference. People raised the issues that they had and we talked. Black mayor, black speaker, black majority leader, coming together and talking to each other,” he said. “And if you would have turned on the news this morning, you would have said, ‘It was all hell up there.’
“I’m trying to figure out — do you guys already write the stories before I do something and just print out what you’ve already written?”
Adams’ fuming came one day after he all but admitted his bid to get state lawmakers to budge on his anti-crime agenda had failed. On Monday, he appeared to throw in the towel on trying to convince top state lawmakers to roll back the state’s bail reform law following a closed-door meeting in Albany.
Adams told reporters that he “shared” his plan to fight crime in the Big Apple before adding, “If I am not getting the things I laid out … I still have an obligation to keep the city safe.”
Later Tuesday, an often stylish, nightlife-loving Adams, whose mood had apparently improved, heaped praise on the Long Island-born and New York City-educated clothing and accessory designer’s work and Big Apple boosterism.
“I wore many of his suits throughout the years,” Adams said of Michael Kors, according to Women’s Wear Daily, complimenting “the energy he’s bringing [to] New York …sending a message that New York is fashion, not only on the runways, but also just on the everyday street corners.”
“And so I just wanted to support him because he supported us,” Adams reportedly said. “He’s 100 percent New York. He’s a flag-waver. And I’m going to find all the flag-wavers and say, come on back to the city so that we can enjoy the great ways that this city has improved all of our lives.”
Adams’ attendance at the Kors show was the second time he took in a New York Fashion Week event.
On Sunday morning, a three-piece suit-wearing Adams went to IMG’s In the Blk showcase that featured black designers’ work, according to his Twitter account and public schedule.
