Why Doja Cat Backtracking on Her Timothée Chalamet Comments Shows the Internet May Be Becoming Less Insane (Finally!)

Rachel McRadyThu, March 12, 2026 at 7:34 PM UTC

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Doja Cat discussed her deleted video about Timothée Chalamet on TikTok.Credit: Doja Cat/TikTok -

Doja Cat addressed Timothée Chalamet's controversial comments about ballet and opera in a since-deleted TikTok video

She later admitted her critique was "virtue signaling" and an attempt to connect with others online

The Grammy winner's self-aware reflection inspired a PEOPLE staffer to highlight her willingness to hold herself accountable

This week something truly monumental happened on the Internet.

No, I’m not referencing Donna Kelce renovating her modest Florida home (but let's talk about that later). I’m talking about a TikTok posted by Doja Cat.

Which one, you may ask? The “Paint the Town Red” rapper is known for a very prolific (and extremely un-strategic) TikTok posting strategy, which she readily admits is all in good fun.

However, two posts from the Grammy winner this week stood out in particular. The first, which has since been deleted, came on March 9. It featured Doja Cat, whose real name is Amala Dlamini, posing in a towel, fresh-faced, discussing Timothee Chalamet’s recent controversial claim that “no one cares” about the ballet and opera.

“Hey, by the way, opera is 400 years old, ballet is 500 years old,” she said in the clip. “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.”

But that’s not the video that caught my attention and gave me the first spark of hope I’ve felt toward Internet culture in years. That video was her follow-up the next day.

It wasn't an apology video to Chalamet, but more of a public backtrack, saying she regretted posting about the topic to begin with, not being an expert in either the ballet or opera herself. In fact, she admitted to never having seen a live performance of either medium.

Doja Cat attends the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards in Sept. 2025.Credit: Taylor Hill/WireImage

“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,” Doja Cat said in her clip. “It’s a need to connect, whether good or bad.”

She even took it a step further, calling her deleted video “virtue signaling,” adding, “I wanted to connect and I knew that Timothée’s goof-up was something that I could leverage in order for people to connect with me.”

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Not finished with her own self-critique, Doja Cat added that she intentionally made the original video in an attempt to “be sincere,” adding, “That was the perfect material for me to seem sincere… I think I just wanted a hug. I think that’s all that I wanted. I wanted a hug. I wanted to feel like I was part of something bigger than myself. I wanted to be pat on the back the way everybody else is patting each other on the back in the comments sections. And I wanted to look like a hero, and that’s what happened. And when I got it, I didn’t like it so much.”

In my nearly 15 years of covering celebrities, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a confession this self-aware. It was truly a masterclass, the likes of which I think should be celebrated and given far more attention than Chalamet’s unfortunate comments.

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The "discourse at all costs" nature of the Internet only fuels the toxic online culture that people have been lamenting for decades. Of course it's hard not to want to jump in on every conversation when the dopamine triggers are going full blast. But perhaps we, like Doja Cat, need to accept that not everyone needs to weigh in on every controversy the Internet supplies on a daily basis.

Doja Cat attends the 2025 LACMA Art + Film Gala in Los Angeles on Nov. 1, 2025.Credit: Monica Schipper/FilmMagic

If you feel passionately about something? By all means, jump in. But more often, I think, we should resist the invisible pressure to give our two cents, especially if and when we have no real ties to the topic.

Ask yourself: What is driving me to comment on this conversation, and what good will it do to pile on to someone in such a public way? In an age where podcasts are the new blogs — and the only thing more common than reaction accounts is food companies adding protein to things that shouldn’t have protein in them — perhaps we should follow in Doja Cat’s footsteps and “walk on by”?

Are you talking to talk or do you actually have something to say? It’s a question to consider before hitting “publish.”

And in the interest of full transparency, just like Doja Cat’s relationship to ballet and opera, I had very little experience with the rapper prior to this story. But after seeing her snatch up every inch of accountability and model some truly stellar online etiquette, I’ve definitely become a life-long fan.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”