Timothée Chalamet Confirms Secret Past Life as an Xbox Modder

Hollywood's hottest young actor used to paint Xbox 360 controllers on YouTube

BY Megan LaPierrePublished Oct 27, 2021

White boy of the month Timothée Chalamet is starring in two box-office hits simultaneously with Dune and The French Dispatch, and recently broke the internet when the first images of him as Willy Wonka entered the world — but who was he before becoming best friends with Zendaya? As it turns out, a passionate modifier of controllers for Xbox 360 gaming consoles.

Doing the lord's work, Vice launched an investigation into a fan theory that arose in 2018 — when a fan page called ChalametUniverse posted about it on Instagram — with the help of a security expert who literally investigates war crimes.

With a YouTube channel under the straight-to-the-chase name ModdedController360, Chalamet used to sell controllers with custom paint-jobs, showing off his handiwork by uploading brief videos.

The channel only contains three videos, all uploaded in February and March of 2010 — when the actor would've been 15. He doesn't show his face, but we hear a raspy voice greet viewers with "What's good, YouTube? This is ModdedController360 with the controller of the week."

According to the investigative team, the voice sounds awfully similar to Chalamet's in videos of him acting from the same time period, including his breakout role on a 2009 episode of Law & Order.

After Vice published their investigation earlier today, they were sent a recent clip of Chalamet confirming the theory.

Case: closed.

Still, you can watch a clip from the channel below and see if you'd buy into the theory without Chalamet's confirmation. Maybe we're not discerning enough, but we were pretty convinced as soon as we saw the sweater vest.


Read Exclaim!'s interview with Dune director Denis Villeneuve.

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