The Ballad of Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet
On the hot couple of the moment
So cute.
Sometimes, two celebs step out as a couple, and no one can make sense of it. But then they stay together, the paps keep flocking to them, and a visual narrative emerges. And sometimes the public consensus swings from “Ew, FAKE” to “Soo cute and compatible!”
This is what’s happening with Kylie and Timothée. Any doubts I had about them disappeared when I saw this photo. It’s candid and sweet, and shows Kylie admiring Timmé, as if he were her muse!
Yin and yang, influencer and talent, a West Coast icon and an East Coast icon have joined forces against all odds. When I posted on my Instagram story soliciting opinions of the pair two weeks ago, MANY PEOPLE HAD MUCH TO SAY. And the thoughts really ran the gamut. Something tells me if I polled today, after the photos from the Knicks game last night, the responses would have skewed more towards “cute.”
Some background on our West Coast Icon
Kylie is my “favorite” Kardashian, or at least the one who interests me most. One: her adolescence was spent on Tumblr, meaning she knows what it means to be in the trenches. And two, I just think she’s a weirdo (complimentary).
Remember the stir she caused after she got lip injections for her sixteenth birthday? This began her “King Kylie” era… blue hair, black almond nails, rocker aesthetic, the alt Kardashian. I remember staring at these photos, SHOOK that this was the same Kylie who used to have really thin lips! She started a frenzy: after debuting her new look, Google searches for "lip fillers" rose by 3,233%. 2014, we were so young…
On the heels of the lip controversy, she dropped “lip kits” the following year — matte liquid lipstick + lipliner combinations — in 3 colors for $29 a pop. The first drop sold out in under a minute, and I am told that if you take a class on e-commerce this is mentioned as a watershed moment in “e-commerce history.” I don’t really care about her business acumen, but I do think it’s funny that, after becoming famous for fake lips and selling out lip kits, she also became an ambassador for The Smile Train, a non-profit that corrects underserved children’s cleft palates. (This experience was documented on her short-lived E! spinoff, Life of Kylie). I also think it’s fascinating she was able to hide her pregnancy after she got pregnant at 19, and turned the reveal into a rebrand. There was also the time she switched her and Travis Scott’s son’s name from Wolf to Aire when the kid was already over a year old. Anyways…
Kylie, or Kylizzlmynizzl—her old Snapchat name— is a devout student of the internet. She’s an edge lord who was born to post (just like Joyce Carol Oates). She was Snapchat Royalty during the app’s short-lived reign, and once tanked their stock by $1.4 billion by tweeting that she didn’t use it much anymore.
In 2016 I wrote an article about how Kylie invented the concept of “posting and deleting,” but my previous employer’s website seems to have been scrubbed from the internet (for the best). Anyway I stand by it…she invented the concept of posting something to grid and then deleting it, years before Instagram introduced the “archive” feature and everyone’s grids became 9 posts long:
Something she posted and deleted.
Only half a Kardashian (well not even), Kylie’s just edgy enough to have carved out a brand identity that feels removed from her half-sisters. (Kendall erasure yes, she’s boring.) But one thing she can’t really shake is that, like them, she is so provincially Los Angeles that it’s near impossible to picture her anywhere other than Instagram, in a paparazzi shot, or in front of her many cars. So to see her with Timmé is indeed a shock— he’s from another world!
I keep trying to Google “how many cars does Kylie Jenner have” and nobody is sure. However everyone is in agreement that the number is “at least eight.”
Some background on our East Coast Icon
Timothée, in what is my personal favorite red carpet fit from his A Complete Unknown red carpet run.
Ex-Mitchell-Lama housing resident, Columbia and NYU drop-out, LaGuardia grad, and prominent Knicks fan, Timothée Chalamet is so East Coast, so New York, it’s understandable that some people are confused by his Calabasas Queen. The only West Coast thing about him is Hollywood: not since Romeo and Juliet-era Leo DiCaprio has an actor with such undeniable boyish charm stepped out on the scene and made this level of impression! You’ll have to excuse me, I know Timmé would rather be thought of as a descendant of DeNiro/Pacino.
Wild lore follows this man. A video of him performing as rapper Timmy Tim from high school has over six million views. The creator of his fan forum, a Gen X lawyer by the name of Simone Cromer (you simply can’t make up a name like that) is almost as much of a celebrity as he is. She goes by “ClubChalamet” online, but if you subscribe to this Substack, I assume you know all about her. If you don’t… read up, honey!
Chalamet’s breakout year was 2017, the year his now-paramour was secretly pregnant with Stormi. That year, he starred in Call Me by Your Name, which earned him a Best Actor nomination at 22, and appeared in Lady Bird as Saorsie Ronan’s second-act boyfriend.
This year, by playing Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, he became the youngest two-time Oscar nominee since James Dean.
Idk, this should’ve gotten him the Oscar
Timmé’s never been as hot as he is right now, but it’s not like he hasn’t been dying to get here. I suspect more people paid attention his A Complete Unknown Oscar campaign than actually went to see the movie. He was everywhere: double duty on SNL, being interviewed by Anderson Cooper and Theo Von, filming an impromptu music video for Visions of Johanna at sunrise at Pier 66 (see above), and on every red carpet for months, styled in memorable fits that seemed to capture both the poetic rebellion of 1960s Dylan and his own incontestable It factor.
I HAVE wondered if Kylie, a savant at constructing an image you can’t look away from, influenced him in this way.
Kylie + Timmé, the Item
The following images from earlier this year are quite unconvincing, and the initial reaction the public had to the pair seems understandable:
Timmé and his mom together at the BAFTAs in February.
Timmé knew they were being papped, but clearly, did not know how to act!
It’s almost as if Chalamet couldn’t figure out how he wanted to be perceived next to her. She is hugely more famous, and has been for longer.
Kylie’s previous relationship was with rapper Travis Scott, with whom she shares Stormy and Aire. They were on and off for five years and the details of their relationship was always opaque— it was unclear if they even ever lived together, or if they were exclusive. While Travis seemed to shy away from the Kardashian fame, Timmé seems to genuinely aspire to be hugely famous, not in a vapid way, but for his art: case and point, his SAG awards speech.
I think it’s a good look for Timmé, because if he wants to be big, he needs to be comfortable being adored by Kylie Jenner!
Kylie and Timmé last night. SO CUTE, I say!
Sports games are low-stakes compared to awards shows— like, you can wear a t-shirt. Kylie is a lifelong Lakers fan and no stranger to the stadium. Which is maybe why all the photos from these last couple weeks of harrowing Knicks games show an ease, something that points to real chemistry. That, and the fact that his team is finally good.
Perhaps the Knicks winning last night— and the fact that they won against the Celtics two weeks ago when she last courtside— is perhaps proof that Kylie and Timmé are… magic?! If not magic, than whatever the opposite of the Kardashian Curse is.
We’ll see what happens at Game 6. If she travels to Indianapolis with him and the Knicks win, and then win again, maybe they’ll tie the knot…
What are your thoughts on the hottest couple of our times? I’ll highlight some responses from my Instagram survey…
“I’m FASCINATED for reasons I can not explain”
“Seems to be an intelligence, talent, and culture disparity”
”They both irritate me and this feels like a stunt gone on too long”
”I love! He seems to have brought the sweet/shy side in Kylie!”
“I’m happy for a short king, but he’s leagues beneath her...”
“It feels so old school in a way that nobody is doing and I love that. I can’t wait for it to get messy”
The Samantha connection is appropriate because based on those pap photos, dude kisses like a mannequin.