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Timothée Chalamet’s rap persona, explained

Move over, Travis Scott! Lil' Timmy Tim is here!

Timothée Chalamet may be the boyfriend of Kylie Jenner, but he is also one of a collection of celebrity men, commonly known as “The Internet’s Boyfriend.” The Internet’s Boyfriend is a status granted to male celebrities who have an adoring online following, thanks to their charm, talent, good looks, and overall good vibes. These fanbases tend to be predominately female, but even the most heterosexual men admit to having crushes on many of these guys.

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As is often the case with celebrity internet boyfriends, videos of the celebrities acting goofy in an endearing way often go viral online — for example, how often has the Pedro Pascal crying video been used? Or any other Pedro Pascal–related video? If you’re an active Twitter or TikTok user, you will likely have seen a video of Chalamet rapping, under the name Lil’ Timmy Tim.

On The Graham Norton Show, the titular host presented Chalamet with an old clip from his high school days, featuring a rap he created for his statistics class teacher, Miss Lawton.

“I did it with a friend on a green screen in school, and I was going to photoshop my teacher’s face in, but I got lazy, so I’m just pointing around,” Chalamet explained before the video began.

The clip, where Chalamet raps with backing dancers about his favorite teacher, sent Norton and Timothée’s co-star from Lady Bird and Little Women, Saoirse Ronan, into fits of giggles.

The grade from Miss Lawton? It was a D. “I probably deserved worse,” Chalamet laughed.

If you’re wondering how Chalamet was able to submit a rap song for a statistics class, it is because he attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, a performing arts high school based in Manhattan, with famous alumni including Al Pacino, Jennifer Aniston, and Sarah Paulson. At LaGuardia, performing arts ranging across art, music, and drama are a core part of the everyday curriculum.

Another viral clip shows a 16-year-old Chalamet rapping Nicki Minaj’s “Roman’s Revenge” as part of the school’s Rising Stars 2012 showcase. Fitted with MC Hammer pants and some jerky dance moves, the performance is as impressive as it is ludicrous.

Recently, Wonka director Paul King said the clips of Chalamet rapping in high school helped the young actor bag the role as Willy Wonka in the upcoming musical film.

“because he’s Timothée Chalamet and his life is so absurd, his high school musical performances [singing “Sweet Charity” from the musical of the same name] are on YouTube [including his 2012 “Timmy Tim” rap] and have hundreds of thousands of views,” King revealed in an interview with Rolling Stone.

“So I knew from stanning for Timmy Chalamet that he could sing and dance really well. And I knew that was in his arsenal, but I didn’t know how good he was. When I spoke to him he was quite keen. He’d done tap dancing in high school and he was like, ‘I’d quite like to show people I can do that.’”

So… is Willy Wonka going to rap in the upcoming movie, then? Our magic eight ball says signs point to maybe.


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Author
Image of Bethany Gemmell
Bethany Gemmell
Bethany Gemmell is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Bethany mainly covers reality TV at We Got This Covered, but when she's off-duty, she can often be found re-watching Better Call Saul for the millionth time.