Doja Cat has weighed in on the backlash against Timothée Chalamet over his controversial remarks about the opera and ballet.
The Oscar-nominated actor has come under fire online and from the performing arts community after he claimed in an interview that the general public doesn’t care about ballet or opera anymore.
Weighing in on the debate on TikTok, Paint the Town Red singer Doja called out Chalamet by name and insisted that ballet and opera are thriving art forms.
“Opera is 400 years old. Ballet is 500 years old,” she began in a since-deleted video posted on Sunday. “Somebody named Timothée Chalamet – big guy, by the way – had the nerve to say on camera that nobody cares about it. I’m sure you can walk into an opera theatre 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.”
The Say So hitmaker, real name Amala Dlamini, described ballet as “an amazing theatre medium” and praised ballet dancers for their dedication and commitment to it.
“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,” she continued.
“There’s still an audience. People give a f**k. You show up in a nice outfit, you sit the f**k down and you shut the f**k up. That’s the usual etiquette around those things. Maybe learn something from that.”
During a Variety and CNN discussion with Matthew McConaughey last month, Chalamet appeared to dismiss ballet and opera while talking about preserving the cinema experience.
“I admire people (saying), ‘Hey, we gotta keep movie theatres alive. We gotta keep this genre alive,'” he said. “I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive, even though no one cares about this anymore.'”
The Marty Supreme star quickly added, “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there… Damn, I just took shots for no reason.”
