Doja Cat Called Out Timothée Chalamet Over His Opera Comments

Timothée Chalamet has made an enemy out of ballet and opera supporters — including Doja Cat, apparently. On March 8, the rapper responded to the actor’s controversial comments in a recent interview with Matthew McConaughey for Variety, where he insinuated that the art forms were dead.

“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,’” he said. In a since-deleted TikTok video, Doja gave a brief history lesson, stating that “opera is 400 years old, ballet is 500 years old,” and called out Chalamet directly, hilariously mispronouncing his name.

“Somebody named Timothée Chalamet — big guy, by the way — had the nerve to say on camera that nobody cares about it,” she 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. There is an etiquette around opera. There’s etiquette around ballet.”

Doja’s Defense

Doja described the theater mediums as “f*cking beautiful,” before acknowledging the performers who keep them going. “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 what they do.”

She went on to specifically note that her and Chalamet’s industries “have a tough time” but keep going, just like ballet and opera. “Doesn’t mean people don’t care about it. Dancers care. Singers care. The audience cares,” she said, before telling him to take notes from their decorum. “You show up in a nice outfit, you sit the f*ck down and you shut the f*ck up. That’s the usual etiquette around those things. Maybe learn something from that.”

Chalamet has yet to respond to the controversy, but he caught himself in the moment. “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there,” he clarified to McConaughey. “Damn, I just took shots for no reason.”

In a December interview, he revealed that his mom, sister, and grandmother danced for the New York City Ballet, stating, “I grew up dreaming big at the backstage at the Koch Theater.”