Tina Fey says there was no real drama behind the viral Timothee Chalamet Knicks Game photos that set off a wave of memes in April. Speaking on the New Heights podcast, Fey told Travis and Jason Kelce that the Oscar-nominated actor was “nothing but lovely” to her during the playoff game.
Fey said the online chatter did not even reach her until the next day, when she saw the “manspreading” jokes circulating after the Knicks’ Game 5 win over the Atlanta Hawks. “It wasn't 'til the next day that I saw all these ‘manspreading' things, but I will say, you gotta remember, for every amount that he's sitting like this [creating a V with her hands] and ‘manspreading,' I'm doin' the opposite,” she said. “I've got a big ol' can. As Amy Poehler would say, God is fair. Timothée's legs took the front, my big old can was takin' the back. We had no beef. It was all good.”
Fey and Chalamet were among the celebrities on row at the game, alongside Kylie Jenner, Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor and Tracy Morgan, and pictures of Chalamet went viral in the hours after tipoff. The Knicks won that night, then went on to recover from a 2-1 deficit against Atlanta by winning the next three games by double digits, a stretch that carried them past the Philadelphia 76ers and the Cleveland Cavaliers and into the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.
The online debate centered on photos that fans said showed Chalamet leaning into Fey’s space, but Fey’s version is plain: the moment looked bigger on social media than it felt in the arena. Her comments on Tuesday closed the loop on a joke that had outlived the game itself, and they did it with the same message she gave the Kelce brothers — there was no bad blood, only a courtside seat and a camera angle that did the rest.
