Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | June 12, 2026
We really need to make selling out embarrassing again. Remember the halcyon days when not every ad on TV and the internet featured celebrities trying to coax you into using gambling apps? Over the past year or so, an even more evil contender entered the villa in the form of prediction markets: they're essentially a way to gamble on literally everything, from whether Taylor Swift will have a number one record to the day that Trump will bomb Iran. It's a controversial practice, to say the least, one that has bypassed a lot of regulations because they've convinced enough authorities that they're a "financial trading platform" rather than a gambling one. Companies like Kalshi (which are heavily backed by the Trump family) are getting on the celebrity endorsement wagon to try and entice more young people into gambling away their lives. Enter Timothee Chalamet.
Chalamet's ad was posted on Instagram today, simply captioned, "KALSHI." It shows him at a dentist's office, a music store, and in a gaming room, jumping up and down and hitting his head on the ceiling. That acutely captures the sensation I felt when I saw this ad. Timmy, must we?
Mercifully, he is being roasted in the comments. "promoting gambling ain't it," said one reply. "Bro sold his soul," said another. I'm actually pretty surprised by how uniformly negative the comments are. I couldn't even find the token stans defending him (Club Chalamet ditched him for being a leering creep over Connor Storrie, which I'm sure he's genuinely relieved about.) His fans are truly mad that he's shilling for this predatory sh*t. I don't blame them.
It's gross as hell to put your name to something that's already hurt a lot of people and been involved in so many ghoulish controversies: multiple insider trading scandals, betting on the war in Gaza and the killing of Iran's leader, and the deliberate targeting of younger "users" (and AI ads, because of course these losers did that.) I doubt Timmy places bets on this platform. I'd be surprised if he really knew what he was getting into since most celebrities just play ignorant on the crap they put their names to. That doesn't excuse his cravenness, of course. He's like every other celebrity who's been told to "get their bag" at any cost. Once upon a time, stars had to fly to Japan to do their sleazy ads in secret. Now, they're inescapably worldwide, designed to appeal to everyone, and the regulation is practically non-existent.
Timmy probably doesn't care about the many people who have already admitted to losing their life savings on these gambling apps (and it is gambling, make no mistake.) He doesn't think the deliberately addictive nature of a "bet on literally anything" system is a big deal. Whatever makes him rich enough to get a private jet he can park on the runway next to his partner's is the end-goal. Maybe someone can boo him at the next Knicks game and let him know that this level of selling out is pure loser behaviour.
