Tina Fey drew a crowd of online support from social media users who jumped to defend her from Timothee Chalamet’s “manspreading.”
Fey sat between the Oscar nominee and her 30 Rock co-star, Tracy Morgan, at the Knicks-Hawks Playoff on Tuesday night, where she was photographed with her knees pressed together as Chalamet spread his wide-legged.
“Timothee Chalamet, if you don’t stop manspreading on Tina Fey, oh my God,” wrote one peeved X user. Wrote another, “The absolute audacity of Timothee Chalamet to manspread on Tina Fey. Poor Tina looks uncomfortable.”
The infraction even earned Chalamet a roasting for his mustache, with one user writing beneath the photo, “Lookin’ like Michael Cera with that crustache.” As users piled on with comments like “Give my girl some space, Timmy,” and “Bro sitting like he owns the whole row,” some called attention to the fact that Morgan was sitting similarly on Fey’s other side.
“Where is this energy for Tracy Morgan doing the same thing?” one user replied, with another sharing a photo from the game that shows Morgan’s knee was also pushed up against Fey’s. Chalamet sat next to his girlfriend, Kylie Jenner, who was seated next to Ben Stiller in the star-studded courtside seats.
Chalamet, a native New Yorker and self-described “true Knicks fan,” who’s often spoken about his lifelong love for the team, brought himself a barrage of negative attention ahead of this year’s Oscar race when he said “no one cares about” the opera or ballet anymore. He received loud pushback for the comments for months afterward from many of his fellow celebrities—including Charlize Theron, Jamie Lee Curtis, Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, and more.
Fey’s perceived discomfort wasn’t helped on Tuesday evening by NBC’s Mike Tirico, who announced her name wrong during the broadcast. “By the way, Reg, sometimes you say celebrity row at a game, and it’s one or two people; this is an entire celebrity row,” Tirico said. “Chalamet,” he named, and then “Tina Fox.”
“It’s literally like a scene out of 30 Rock,” one X user joked as another pointed out the blunder. Tirico appeared in a snap with co-commentator Reggie Miller the next day, which Miller captioned correctly, “Thank you for joining us, Tina Fey.”
