Doja Cat has walked back her criticism of Timothee Chalamet's remarks on ballet and opera. After initially slamming the actor, the rapper admitted she knew nothing about the subjects and was 'virtue signaling' for social media engagement.
Doja Cat appears to be rethinking her recent remarks about actor Timothee Chalamet after her comments on social media went viral. The rapper, aka Amala Dlamini, in a social media video, spoke about her earlier reaction to Chalamet's controversial remarks about ballet and opera.
In a now-deleted video, Doja Cat had slammed the actor after he said that "no one cares" about ballet and opera during a discussion earlier, according to PEOPLE. In the earlier video, Doja Cat defended the traditional art forms and questioned Chalamet's statement. She said, "Hey, by the way, opera is 400 years old, ballet is 500 years old. Somebody named Tim-oh-tay Cha-lam-et had the nerve, big guy, by the way, had the nerve to say, on-camera, that nobody cares about it."
Rapper Admits to 'Virtue Signaling'
However, a day later, the rapper returned to TikTok and admitted that her reaction came in the heat of the moment. She also said she does not have much knowledge about the subjects she spoke about. "I am going to come out and say that I know nothing about opera. I know nothing about ballet," Doja Cat clarified. "I've never been to a ballet. I've never seen an opera. And I took it upon myself yesterday to kind of give it to the man because there is a culture based around outrage and things like that and people want to feel like they're part of something. It's a need to connect, whether good or bad."
After watching several videos about the debate around Chalamet's comments, Doja Cat said she realised she may not have been the right person to speak about the topic. "What I was doing yesterday was virtue signaling because I wanted to connect and I knew that Timothee's goof up was something that I could leverage in order for people to connect with me and f--- with me," she admitted. "And it's easy. It's a modern way to garner clicks, likes, approval and all kinds of things like that from people. And so I did that yesterday, and I didn't really think about why I was doing it," she added as per PEOPLE.
Chalamet's Original Remarks That Sparked Controversy
Earlier, Chalamet had made his comment during a town hall discussion with actor Matthew McConaughey, which sparked reactions from people in the ballet and opera communities, according to PEOPLE. During the discussion, Chalamet had 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, like, no one cares about this anymore.' All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there."
After realizing his comment was offensive, Chalamet joked, "I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I just took shots for no reason." (ANI)
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianet Newsable English staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)