Multi-millionaire Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary was so confident that his Marty Supreme co-star Timothee Chalamet would be the one to land the Best Actor Oscar that he even put money on it. In a last-minute Academy Awards bet, the investor-cum-actor wagered $1,000 on the betting app Kalshi that Chalamet would walk away with one of the biggest prizes of the night.

O’Leary proudly made the confession to Variety on the Oscars red carpet despite his co-star having earned “controversial” status in the past few weeks for talking down the ballet and opera. Unbeknownst to the fact that destiny had different plans for Sunday night, the Shark Tank mogul defended betting on Chalamet by saying, “I know the voting stopped long before that controversy happened.”

Cut to a few hours later, not only did Timothee not snag the Best Actor trophy at the Oscars 2026, but his sports drama Marty Supreme also failed to reign supreme at the show and was entirely shut out of all its 9 nominations this year. For the unversed, Chalamet wasn’t just snubbed on Oscars night; he was also brazenly roasted by fellow industry insiders and netizens alike, prompting the re-emergence of the infamous nickname “Timothe Shallow-meh.”

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Kevin O’Leary loses a thousand-dollar bet on Timothee Chalamet

Although O’Leary was right to judge that Oscar voting closed before his co-star’s buzzworthy controversy, he wasn’t right in weighing his odds for the Best Actor win on Sunday. While he claims to have placed a $1,000 bet on Kalshi that Timothee would beat his contenders, Michael B Jordan, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ethan Hawke, and Wagner Moura for the prestigious Oscar trophy, it ultimately came down to the Sinners actor to lift the glorious statue on March 15, 2026.

Jordan merely repeated what he did at SAG’s Actor Awards earlier. However, this time Chalamet’s loss wasn’t just his own. Going against Michael B Jordan also cost O’Leary a thousand dollars.

Meanwhile, the app he used to put the money on the Oscar bet had predicted beforehand, “Michael B Jordan is 2x more likely to win the Oscar for Best Actor after Chalamet’s comments on ballet.” Hours later, Kalshi rejoiced at its timely prediction and boasted on X, “Michael B. Jordan wins Best Actor as forecasted by Kalshi traders.”

But elsewhere, Kalshi joined the meme-train by leaving a photo of an overly emotional Timothee as a response to O’Leary’s $1K bet confession to Variety.

Timothee Chalamet’s ballet-opera controversy explained

Ballet and opera lovers and most of Hollywood almost instantly banded together to drag the Dune star for taking a dig at the performance arts while talking to fellow actor Matthew McConaughey at a town hall event organised by CNN and Variety in February.

At the time, the Marty Supreme actor said nonchalantly, “I don’t want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it’s like, ‘Hey, keep this thing alive,’ even though, like, no one cares about this anymore — all respect to all the ballet and opera people out there. I just lost 14 cents in viewership. Damn, I just took shots for no reason.”

However, his remarks and the video only started doing numbers on the Internet weeks later. The subsequent outrage was so excessive that even many celebrities, including Jamie Lee Curtis and former American Ballet Theatre dancer Misty Copeland, chimed in on it to rebuke him. Ironically, Copeland also joined the Sinners crew at Sunday night’s ceremony for a performance of “I Lied to You,” which was again viewed by many netizens as a sneaky dig at Chalamet.

The high-profilers were especially ticked off by his comment, knowing that Chalamet’s mother and sister both danced with the School of American Ballet.

‘Timothee Shallow-meh’ trend resurfaces: Internet trolls actor

Earlier this month, Whoopi Goldberg and her co-hosts on The View also jumped in to call Timothee out for dissing the beloved and meticulous forms of art, saying, “I’m offended and disappointed. I didn’t realise he was that vapid and that shallow.”

During an episode of the morning show, The View, Goldberg added, “You come from a dance family, so when you crap on somebody else’s art form, it doesn’t feel good. You probably didn’t realize until you said, ‘Oh, I’m in trouble,’ but then you compounded it and said, ’14 cents.’ No, when people get mad, it’ll be a lot more than 14 cents, so be careful. I’m just saying. Be careful, boy. He is a boy to me. No disrespect. Really, don’t apologize when you’ve insulted. It doesn’t sound right. You can’t say, ‘Oh, this is dumb, no disrespect.’ That’s absolute disrespect.”

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Alluding to her comments on The View, a Financial Times writer fanned the fire even further, saying Goldberg “missed the chance to call him Timothée Shallow-meh — perhaps she was going for gravitas.”

The same sentiment has since been carried forward and echoed in comments shared by netizens after the Oscar snub. One user commented, “and nothing for Timothee shallow meh.”

Another user quipped, “Timothee won in my shallow heart.” Just this past week, someone tweeted elsewhere, “I still wouldn’t care for Timothee Shallow-may.” A fourth, alluding to his Ballet and Opera comments controversy wrote on X over a week ago, “Timothee Very-Shallow-May, just go away…And kiss your Oscar goodbye!” Yet another added on the same conversation a while back, “He’s Timothèe SHALLOW MEH.”

In addition to all that, Chalamet continued being mocked at the Oscars multiple times. Even Conan O’Brien said in his monologue, “Security is extremely tight tonight. I’m told there’s concerns about attacks from both the opera and ballet communities.”

Alexandre Singh, one of the directors of the best live action short winner Two People Exchanging Saliva, also took aim at the actor in his own acceptance speech, “We believe that art can change people’s souls. Maybe it takes 10 years’ time, but we can change society through art, through creativity, through theater and ballet.” Pausing for a moment to allow the crowd to react, he then added, “and also cinema.”