Timothée Chalamet Can’t Help but Be Everywhere Right Now

Well, they did say there’s no such thing as bad press. And Timothée Chalamet is currently testing the limits of that theory by being absolutely everywhere: in movies, on red carpets, across your For You Page, and in a twist no one saw coming, possibly even in the U.K. rap scene?? He’s done that rare celebrity thing of infiltrating every corner of the internet at once.

It starts with the fact that Chalamet is in full-throttle promo mode for Marty Supreme, which drops Christmas Day. That means interviews, premieres, surprise appearances, and a marketing push that’s been extremely effective. A goofy promo video of Chalamet attending the “marketing meeting” for the film and throwing out the craziest ideas he could think of went viral, and from there the momentum only snowballed. The crown jewel of the campaign, though, is the Marty Supreme jacket, which has been gifted to celebs like Frank Ocean, Tom Brady, and Justin and Hailey Bieber. Reviews for the film have also begun trickling in, and the praise for his performance has been loud.

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But as if the movie chatter weren’t enough, people have also just decided that Chalamet is not only an actor but secretly an English rapper named EsDeeKid. Yes, seriously. EsDeeKid’s track “4 Raws” has taken over TikTok, and sleuths have created entire dissertations arguing that the rapper is actually Timmy in disguise, largely because the eyes and eyebrows look “eerily similar.” Chalamet, for his part, is letting the rumor marinate. When asked by Heart Radio and BBC in the U.K., he only teased that “all will be revealed in due time.” Whatever that means?? Whether it’s Chalamet or not, EsDeeKid is enjoying the kind of publicity money can’t buy.

The discourse doesn’t end there, though. There’s the debate over whether Chalamet is becoming, in the parlance of social media, “annoying.” The spark this time was his own confidence.

“This is probably my best performance, and it's been, like, seven, eight years that I feel like I've been handing in really, really committed, top-of-the-line performances,” he said in an interview. “And it's important to say out loud because the discipline and the work ethic I'm bringing to these things, I don't want people to take for granted. I don't want to take for granted. This is really some top-level shit."

Some people haven’t been impressed with the his self-assuredness.

“He doesn’t have the quality of work to be this arrogant yet tbh. he doesn’t carry movies he is in consistently,” TikTok commenter @bussybacon wrote. “He’s not bad but he’s not like Willem Dafoe or somebody on that level.”

“He’s trying too hard," another comment added. "It’s coming off too cocky. He needs to be himself and stop with this whole ‘method acting.’ Kristen Stewart explains it so well.”

But some argue that haters are missing the point.

“We celebrate talk like that in a bunch of other lanes,” TikTok creator Bobby Foster said in a video breaking down the topic. “People love Kobe’s mentality. People love Michael Jordan’s mentality. Rappers declare they’re the GOAT all the time. People love that from Lil Wayne, people love Kendrick call himself the king, but somehow Timothée saying he’s proud of his work, we draw the line. We’re comfortable when people own their mistakes, but very uncomfortable when people really own their strengths.”

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