The ‘Stranger Things’ star Doja Cat called out for “saying dumb shit”
Doja Cat has gotten into her fair share of online spats and controversies during her time. But a particularly silly one came when she messaged a then-underage star of Stranger Things, and they, in turn, leaked the messages onto the internet.
Noah Schnapp, who plays Will Byers in the show, was 17 years old in 2022, when, it turns out, Doja Cat was messaging him about one of his co-stars. She had taken an interest in the English actor Joseph Quinn, and it seems that she was looking for a matchmaker to help put her in touch with him. So she turned to the teenage Schnapp.
But Schnapp, in turn, revealed to his TikTok followers what Doja had asked of him. This, predictably, went viral, and it forced Doja, who was in her late 20s at the time, into a reaction. Taking to Instagram Live, she expressed her frustration with the situation, albeit while acknowledging Schnapp’s young age.
“I think that, to be fair, let’s try to be chill about it,” she said. “Like Noah is a kid, but I don’t even know how old he is, but he can’t be over, like there’s no way he’s over 21. But when you’re that young, you make mistakes. You do dumb shit. I’m like trying to be super fair… You make mistakes. Like you’re supposed [to] do that so that you know you’re not supposed to do that in the future. I did my share of fuck-ups so that I don’t fuck up again.”
But her graciousness only went so far. “But the fact that Noah did that,” she said, “like went and posted a private conversation between me and him is so unbelievably socially unaware and whack. That’s like borderline snake shit. That’s like weasel shit.”
Her response video was a bit all over the place, vacillating between an understanding that Schnapp had not yet reached maturity and annoyance at what the teenager had done. “I’m not saying that encapsulates his entire personality,” she said. “I wouldn’t imagine he is. Maybe he is, like a whole snake. But I didn’t see him that way. I made an assumption that he was gonna be chill about it, and he went and shared information that I didn’t feel comfortable with him sharing.”
She ultimately tried to play down the situation, admitting that it wasn’t “the end of the fucking world” and that things were “totally okay”. But even at that, she couldn’t hide her irritation. “I didn’t tell him not to post it because you don’t expect people to do that,” she said. “Because it’s not normal to do that. It’s literally not cool, and it’s not normal… I’m bummed, and I’m disappointed. No, it’s not that deep. It’s just disappointing.”
To have one’s private messages leaked onto the internet would undeniably have felt awful, but a lot of the public reaction focused on Doja Cat herself. Why had she been messaging a teenager to request that he play matchmaker for her? What Schnapp had done was bad, but there was certainly a feeling online that Doja had herself been acting inappropriately. Schnapp later said on social media that he had apologised to Doja for leaking the messages, claiming that the situation had been resolved.