Misty Copeland came out of retirement and recovery just in time to make a point on pointe about Timothée Chalamet’s ballet-bashing comments at the Academy Awards. In a star-studded performance of “I Lied To You” from Sinners, she twirled on the hypocritical hater as he sat front row.
On Sunday night, songwriter Raphael Sadiq opened the show-stopping reenactment, inviting us back into Smoke and Stack’s juke joint with his guitar. In the live-action version of the stunning cinematic sequence, co-stars Jayme Lawson and Li Jun Li surround Miles Caton. Blues legend Buddy Guy, Shaboozey, Brittany Howard, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Eric Gales, Bobby Rush, Alice Smith, and DJ D-Nice soon emerged to join the powerhouse performance that spanned generations, genres, and geography.
At the musical, emotional, and spiritual peak of Caton’s veil-piercing high note, Copeland dazzlingly danced into center stage. Her beautiful ballet moves followed a stunning series of footworking, twerking, Xiqu, breakdancing, Zaouli, and more. The audience went wild with applause! One of the most notable members of the standing ovation was Best Lead Actor nominee for Marty Supreme, Timothée Chalamet.
All corners of the internet and media have united to thoroughly thrash the Dune actor for shading the ballet and opera as art forms that “no one cares about.” He made the controversial comments during a Variety and CNN Town Hall with Matthew McConaughey. And the backlash hasn’t taken a break since, except to drag Jack Harlow’s Common Cosplay.
“I admire people, and I’ve done it myself, who go on a talk show and go, ‘Hey, we gotta keep movie theaters alive. You know, we gotta keep this genre alive,’” Chalamet told McConaughey per Entertainment Weekly. “And another part of me feels like, if people want to see it, like Barbie, like Oppenheimer, they’re going to go see it and go out of their way to be loud and proud about it.”
“And 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 continued.
“All respect to the ballet and opera people out there,” he added.
You know who cares about ballet? New Oscar winner Ryan Coogler, who included a ballet dancer among the performers in the transcendent music sequence in Sinners. It was only right to feature Copeland, who broke racial barriers in the art form to become one of the most famous ballerinas in the world. Like the legend she is, the 43-year-old delivered a master class on ballet’s relevance on relevé!
Before she was announced as part of the Academy Awards presentation of “I Lied To You,” all eyes were on Copeland for a response to Chalamet’s comments. By the time Copeland pliéd in his face, Chalamet already played in hers as one of the celebrities enlisted to promote his ping pong movie. If that wasn’t shady enough, Timmy’s own mother, grandmother, and sister are professional ballet dancers. Make it make sense!
Check out how Misty Copeland clapped back at Timothée Chalamet’s ignorant interview after the jump!