“The View” cohosts hit back at Timothée Chalamet after the actor’s anti-ballet and opera comments went viral.
Chalamet caught heat when he called the ballet and opera dying art forms that “no one cares about anymore” in a town hall with Matthew McConaughey that aired on CNN.
On Monday’s episode of “The View,” Sunny Hostin said that as a member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, she was “offended and disappointed” in the actor’s comments.
“I didn’t realize he was that vapid and that shallow,” she bluntly stated.
Sheryl Underwood, who was filling in for Alyssa Farah Grriffin while she’s on maternity leave, chalked up the moment to Chalamet — who’s 30 years old — being “young.”
“And you sitting with Matthew McConaughey and y’all kiki-ing and chopping it up … I think he thought he could say that,” she said. “First, he just made the good ping-pong movie. He’s a young, handsome man, but I bet if he was playing [dancer] Rudolf Nureyev… he’d respect the art form a little bit better.”
“That goes to show a lot of young people need to understand, don’t just flip off and say something,” she continued. “Really understand that your words have meaning to other young people.”
But Whoopi Goldberg wasn’t willing to give Chalamet any grace, especially given that his mother and sister have worked in ballet.
“You come from a dance family, and so when you crap on somebody else’s art form, it doesn’t feel good,” she explained. “It doesn’t feel good to see.”
She also had an issue with Chalamet joking after his comments insulting ballet and opera, “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there … I just lost 14 cents in viewership.”
Goldberg mused, “You probably didn’t realize, until you said, ‘Oh, I’m in trouble,’ but then you compounded it, and said, ’14 cents’ — no, when people get mad, it’ll be a lot more than 14 cents.”
“So be careful,” she continued. “I’m just saying. Be careful, boy.”
When the audience reacted in shock to her comments, she doubled down.
“He is a boy to me,” Goldberg stressed. “No disrespect. Really, don’t apologize when you’ve insulted ’cause it doesn’t sound right. You can’t say, ‘Oh, this is dumb, no disrespect.’ That’s absolute disrespect.”
While Chalamet’s ballet and opera diss caused outrage over the weekend, he’s actually said similar comments before.
While promoting “The King” back in 2019, he reflected on his start as an actor, sharing, “No ‘woe is me’ thing, but you start working on movies, you start acting, pursuing your thing.”
“I started getting the sense it was maybe opera or ballet or something, it’s kind of like a dying art form or something,” he continued.
