I’m sure we all know Timothée Chalamet for the number of movies he’s acted in, like “Marty Supreme,” “Dune,” or “Wonka.” But, as of late, he’s become recognizable for something a little different: his not-so-hot take on the arts. For those of you who know, I’m sure you’re already grimacing, but for those of you who don’t, please brace yourselves.

On Feb. 24, 2026, Chalamet officially commented on his take on ballet and opera when invited on the show, Variety.

“I don’t want to be working in ballet or opera, or, you know, things where it’s like, ‘hey, keep this thing alive,’ you know? Even though no one cares about this anymore,” he said.

Identifying this as a “controversial statement” would be an atrocious understatement. This stirred an uproar of professional ballerinas, opera singers and anyone who loves the arts to speak out against this.

I’m a dancer, and to say the least, I was horrified that someone who’s an actor themselves would hold such an unfavorable opinion of the arts. Any area within the arts requires years of training to master and holds such immense value in the lives of many.

I cannot imagine my life without dance, and I find it difficult to envision myself separate from it as I’ve been a dancer since I was seven years old. I don’t do ballet, so the pain and sheer disrespect he inflicted on the ballerinas is not something I can speak to, nor is it something I wish to minimize.

But I am a classical dancer and I know the utter precision and training that go into delivering an effortless performance. The hours spent in the studio learning, rehearsing and refining were never easy. My fellow dancers and I can – without a doubt – attest to the bruised knees or countless injuries we’ve danced through when we were supposed to be resting; a dance career would only be all the more difficult.

But one former ballet dancer showed netizens what ballet truly means to her. Alzheimer’s stole her memories, but there was one thing it couldn’t steal: ballet.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s disease is, in simple terms, memory loss that inhibits cognitive abilities and interferes with one’s daily functioning. Unfortunately, it has no true cure as of now. Former ballet dancer Marta Cinta González Saldaña was suffering from Alzheimer’s and sadly died in 2019. But she left a lasting mark behind.

If ballet truly didn’t matter, would she still have been able to remember the choreography to Swan Lake, many years later? This is an individual who had forgotten everything, but her body could never forget. As the music began to play, she immediately recognized it and began to move to the song.

Alzheimer’s is known to take all memories from the individual, but ballet had such a crucial role in the life of this ballerina that she couldn’t forget, even as she was bound to her wheelchair. This wasn’t just an extracurricular activity she picked up or something that she didn’t care about, but instead something she felt incredibly passionate about. I think she would’ve been heartbroken if she’d heard Chalamet’s comment.

As the character Jamie Kelley from the movie Dear Dumb Diary put it best, the earth without art is just “eh.” This short clip from the movie is accompanied by various movies that brought life to viewers engaging in television. All beautiful forms of art are so empowering for people from all over and serve as a unifying factor.

I can’t nor ever want to imagine a world without art of all forms. I firmly believe that Chalamet’s opinion was flawed and an attack against the many forces that come together to keep, not “this thing” but this masterpiece alive.

I love ballet, I love opera, and above all, I love art, and it will never die; we won’t allow it to. We will continue to keep art alive for decades to come.