Doja Cat is weighing in on Timothée Chalamet’s controversial comments about ballet and opera.
Chalamet, 29, recently drew the ire of the theater community after claiming in an interview that “no one cares” about the art forms anymore.
“Opera is 400 years old. Ballet is 500 years old,” Doja, 30, said in a TikTok video on Sunday, March 8, calling Chalamet out by name.
“Somebody named Timothée Chalamet — big guy, by the way — had the nerve to say on camera that nobody cares about it,” the “Paint the Town Red” rapper said. “I’m sure you can walk into an opera theater right now, seats will be filled out, and nobody’s saying a word as the performance is going because everybody has that much respect for it.”
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She continued, “There is an etiquette around opera. There is etiquette around ballet. It’s amazing. It’s an amazing theater medium. It’s f***ing beautiful.”
Doja went on to praise people who work in ballet and opera for their dedication to their art.
“People go there every day to the dance studio. Dancers show up [at] 8 a.m., 6 a.m. whatever the f*** [time] they show up, and they break and they bleed every single day just because they have respect for it,” she said. “They love it, they love what they do. It doesn’t matter if the industry is having a tough time at any time … a lot of industries have a tough time. Your industry has a tough time. My industry has a tough time. Doesn’t mean people don’t care about it. People care. Dancers care. The singers care. The audience cares.”
“There’s still an audience. People give a f***. You show up in a nice outfit, you sit the f*** down and you shut the f*** up,” she concluded. “That’s the usual etiquette around those things. Maybe learn something from that.”
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Us Weekly has reached out to Chalamet’s representative for comment.
During an interview with Matthew McConaughey for Variety last month, Chalamet talked about audiences seemingly having shorter attention spans.
“I admire people [saying], ‘Hey, we gotta keep movie theaters alive. We gotta keep this genre alive,’” he said. “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore.’”
The Marty Supreme actor quickly added, “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there,” before saying, “Damn, I just took shots for no reason.”
The Oscar nominee has previously noted that several members of his family were ballet dancers, including his mom, Nicole Flender.
“My grandmother danced in the New York City Ballet, my mother danced in the New York City Ballet, my sister danced in the New York City Ballet,” he said. “I grew up dreaming big backstage at the Koch Theater in New York.”
