Before Josh Safdie's movie Marty Supreme was shut out at the Oscars after receiving nine nominations, Mr. Wonderful, aka Kevin O'Leary, defended Timothée Chalamet as he had been criticized heavily for his comments about opera and ballet.
Speaking to Variety and CNN on the red carpet of the Oscars, O'Leary emphasized that Chalamet is “a really great guy,” and he was betting on him winning Best Actor that night. That didn't happen, as Michael B. Jordan won his first Oscar, but O'Leary was confident in his co-star because of the voting taking place before Chalamet's controversial comments.
“I just put 1,000 bucks on Kalshi walking in here that he’s going to win, because I know the voting stops long before that controversy happened,” he explained. “The kid is a great kid. He took a bum rap on that. And by the way, gave a lot of promo to opera houses and ballet.”
Even if Chalamet gave opera and ballet some good press, it didn't help him win his first Oscar, something he's been striving for for years.
What did Oscar-nominated actor Timothée Chalamet say about opera and ballet?
During the awards circuit, Chalamet did an interview with Matthew McConaughey, an Oscar-winning actor. He made a comment about opera and ballet being dying art forms. Right or not, it rubbed many the wrong way, even resulting in people taking shots at him during the 2026 Oscars ceremony.
“I don't want to be working in ballet or opera, or, you know, things where it's like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive,' even though it's like, no one cares about this anymore,” he said.
Granted, he did realize he could have made a mistake. Chalamet did say, “All respect to the ballet and opera people out there.” However, he followed that up by joking, “I just lost 14 cents in viewership. I just took shots for no reason.”
