Timothée Chalamet crashed-out at the 2026 Oscars

There weren’t a lot of dramatic narratives last night, right? There were people you wish would have won or the wins you weren’t necessarily rooting for, but no real villain arcs, per se. As PT Anderson pointed out, it was a bunch of great movies, and one of them winning each category left four others bereft and the audience kind of wishing everyone could win.

Well. Not Everyone.

It has been a very long while since we have seen an Oscar campaign that seemed so promising fall as flat as Timothée Chalamet’s. I can’t remember the last time a kinda-sure-thing, or at least a real legitimate contender, fell flat – and everyone was… not happy about it but not mad at it either! Right?!

It had been building all season. It started with – well, you could say it started as far back as the premiere and the matching orange outfits or his inability to sit up straight anymore or The Comment (we’ll come back to that).

But by Oscar night things were not going Timmy’s way.

First there was the outfit, or rather the reaction to it:

Then – then! This moment, created by Lainey and ETALK that honestly… just gets better and better the longer it plays:

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Come on! Like imagine being that ghosted, in an environment where you can probably *smell* the person who is pretending you don’t exist?! Can you believe this actually happened!?

This is of course because Spielberg, talking on Friday at SXSW about the feelings of unity and possibility brought on by film, pointed out that, “It happens in movies, and in concerts. And it happens in ballet and opera, by the way.”

Is there anything worse than being gently, subtly reprimanded? Why yes there is, it’s being gently subtly reprimanded by someone virtually everyone loves, and then when you’re all nervous but you hope you’re gonna run into them and make it all better, they ghost you!

Plus, everyone around them would have seen this happening! There’s no way you can shake this off on a night when you’re already nervous! But I’m not saying he didn’t try his best, at least at first:

He even let his sister come down and visit the front row of the Oscars!
Which, yes, on the one hand, that’s obnoxious of me to say and I don’t know either of them. Maybe this is fine:

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But on the other hand, who does this? This is Oscar campaigning 101! The “awww look at him..!” move is, you ask your sister (or your mom) to be your date, you introduce them to every outlet on the carpet, and you soak up the adulation. You don’t get them a seat somewhere near the back and let them come up front for a field trip! Do we need Ryan Gosling in here to teach a remedial class?

Regardless, by the time Conan was enthusiastically spanking a model of his ass and the audience was roaring along, it was clear he was very much the… sorry, butt of the joke. He bravely tried to performatively have a good time, but it was very clear this was not his night. He’s a good actor, so he tried, but his smile is threatening to quit throughout the whole last part of the show, and by the time he arrived at Vanity Fair, even his ‘I want to be one of the greats’ skills were not enough to let the joy reach his eyes.

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To be clear, the tone has been shifting. This didn’t all go down just because of The Comment. Voting was just about closed when he said it, first of all, but second, it was the tone. The smug, fratty, “I’m a cool football guy who doesn’t like stupid dorky stuff like ballet and opera, hyunk hyunk.” He’s about two steps away from calling them sissy and pushing them down in the mud, you know? It’s worth remembering that it’s not the words – it’s the tone (skip to 50:05)

The problem with Timothée, and with The Comment, is that he’s being very clear about who he is. He wants the trophies, the fame. He’s focused on all the trappings that come with being a very nominated person. Despite the image he’s been enjoying up to now that implies he’s more artistic than that, more concerned with the emotions and the process when really, he might just like being famous and rich and a Movie Star.

So yes, people joked, and a ballerina was celebrated inches from his face (but no, I don’t think that was a result of The Comments). Because, if he knew that the backlash wasn’t specifically from ballet or opera lovers (who already know, by the way, that their art forms are niche) but from people who were turned off at the smug, gross way he guffawed about them, maybe he’d have changed his tune, or made a joke at his own expense.

But so far, he doesn’t seem capable, so the good people of Online have to do it for him.

Is it that bad? Probably not. But Sarah pointed out that while Timothée’s goodwill has been on a freefall all season, Jacob Elordi seemed to be on an upswing – as each design or craftsperson for Frankenstein won, they all stopped to embrace him, making him seem much more palatable than he has in a while. Not that there’s a direct cause and effect here, but I’m sure Elordi’s happy for someone else to be the object of amused ridicule.

But you know who probably wasn’t thrilled with the demise of Oscar Darling Chalamet? Gwyneth Paltrow, who might have had a career best look last night. This custom Giorgio Armani Privé gown is easily in her top 5 of all time (even if when Lainey reads this she’s going to demand to know which others I’d put in this same category and which ones I’d eliminate), and if the night had gone differently, it might have been a look that stayed in her archive. Look at her…!