Timothée Chalamet has finally quashed rumours that he is cult anonymous rapper EsDeeKid – by performing alongside him in a new video.

Speculation has run riot that the Oscar-nominated US actor has been leading a double life as the masked rapper, who only ever reveals his eyes.

Some followers spotted an apparent resemblance with Chalamet’s eyes, and when the BBC questioned the star about the connection earlier this week, he responded: “No comment… You’ll see, all in due time.”

Now, the actor – who adopted the hip-hop moniker Lil Timmy Tim in high school – has scotched the conspiracies by posting a video of himself rapping alongside EsDeeKid on a remix of the musician’s top 40 hit 4Raws.

In the music video, Chalamet appeared to refer to the rumours by starting with only his eyes on show, like the drill artist, before pulling down the bandana from his face and dropping the bars: “It’s Timothée Chalamet chillin’, tryin’ to stack $100 million.”

He then referenced his partner Kylie Jenner with the line: “Girl got $1 billion.”

The clip was filmed at Andover Minimarket Off Licence in north London, and was reposted by EsDeeKid.

The speculation has been seized upon by fans in recent weeks, and both sides stayed silent as EsDeeKid reached the UK top 10 and Chalamet promoted his new film.

BBC Radio One’s Greg James also quizzed Chalamet in an interview this week about his connection to EsDeeKid, where he responded: “All will be revealed in due time.”

James updated his caption on social media overnight noting “all was revealed”.

Chalamet even gave his movie, Marty Supreme, several shout-outs in the new collaboration, building on an already savvy marketing campaign for the film.

But it was always far-fetched that the two people could be one and the same, and that Chalamet could have pulled off rapping with EsDeeKid’s Liverpudlian accent.

Their collaboration quickly went viral, with British rapper Central Cee replying “Naaa” with crying and laughing emojis, Tinie Tempah posting “Hahha this is sickkk” and US star Shaboozey declaring “This going #1”.

Additional reporting by Lola Schroer.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79x4yqx0ngo

Taken From BBC News

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : A strange new alarm is being manufactured in our time—an alarm that travels faster than facts. In social media clips, in talk shows, and now even in parliamentary and congressional messaging, we are hearing a rising cry that “Sharia must be banned” in the United Kingdom and the United States. The claim is repeated with an air of urgency, as if a parallel state is quietly taking over, as if Western civilisation is under legal siege, as if courts have been replaced and constitutions have been hijacked. It sounds dramatic. It sounds mobilising. It sounds like a culture war slogan designed to trigger fear. Yet when one pauses and asks the basic question—what does “Sharia” mean in the UK or the USA in real, legal terms?—the entire narrative starts to collapse under its own exaggerations.
First, Sharia as it exists for Muslims living in non-Muslim countries is not a state law, not a criminal code, not a government “replacement” for British or American law. In practice, what is most often being discussed are voluntary religious opinions and community-based mediation on personal matters such as marriage, divorce, family disputes, and inheritance—issues that Muslims want resolved in a way that aligns with their faith while still living fully under the law of the land. Even in the UK debate, reputable fact-checking has repeatedly stressed that these bodies are not “courts” in the sense of legal authority; they do not override national law, and the word “court” itself misleads the public into imagining a sovereign parallel judiciary.
The “numbers” that inflame public panic are a classic example of how fear grows when precision is absent. Some voices insist that there are “300 Sharia courts” in Britain, and that the UK is “gradually turning into a Muslim country.” But the most responsible public record is blunt: no one has an official, definitive count, and credible estimates vary widely. Reuters, citing the UK’s own independent review, notes that the number of Sharia councils operating in England and Wales is unknown, with academic and anecdotal estimates ranging roughly from 30 to 85—and, importantly, that to the best of the review’s knowledge there were no such councils in Scotland. Full Fact has likewise explained that there are no definitive figures and that claims about large totals often bundle together everything from major councils to small local forums and online services, turning a complicated social phenomenon into a simplistic “invasion” statistic. Even evidence submitted in the UK parliamentary process has described the number as disputed, pointing to research that identified around 30 “major” councils while acknowledging smaller local bodies might not have been captured—again, a far cry from the certainty with which “300 courts” is shouted in viral posts.
So why does this fear persist? Because it is emotionally profitable. In politics, the easiest way to rally a base is to create a symbol of threat, strip it of nuance, and repeat it until the public stops asking questions. When Nigel Farage famously claimed there were “80 practising Sharia courts” in the UK, the line travelled further than the careful corrections that followed. That single sentence became fuel for a decade of “no-go zones,” “Muslim ghettos,” and “parallel legal systems” rhetoric—even though the legal reality remains that Britain’s law is Britain’s law, and religious mediation cannot lawfully supplant it. In Parliament, Baroness Cox has been among the most prominent figures pushing legislation aimed at restricting or regulating these councils, presenting her campaign as a protection against discrimination—particularly against women—while critics argue the wider debate too often spills into civilisational suspicion rather than focused legal reform.
Now look at the United States. Here, the phrase “Sharia courts” is even more misleading. There is no recognised network of Sharia courts governing cities, no constitutional pathway for such a thing, and no American jurisdiction where Islamic law overrides U.S. law. PolitiFact has addressed the underlying rumour directly: there are no communities “under Sharia law” in the United States in the sense alarmists claim; any attempt to force religious code as law would collide immediately with constitutional limits and civil courts. Yet the political theatre continues. “Anti-Sharia” messaging has not been confined to fringe social media; it has been institutionalised through recurring legislative attempts, often framed as “foreign law bans,” even when American courts already operate under the Supremacy Clause and constitutional protections.
The scale of that legislative churn is not small. A well-known academic/public-policy tracking project notes that since 2010, over 230 anti-Muslim bills have been introduced or enacted in U.S. state legislatures, and that “anti-Sharia” efforts are part of that ecosystem of institutionalised othering. The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented waves of anti-Sharia bills over the years, including a spike in state-level introductions in the late 2010s. And now, in the current congressional atmosphere, the slogan has returned again in high-profile federal proposals. Congress.gov records legislation explicitly titled to keep America “Sharia-free,” and House text for a “No Shari’a Act” frames its purpose as reaffirming that only American law governs American courts, even though that principle is already foundational.
The names behind these pushes matter because the user asked for “renowned politicians,” and because the political mainstreaming of suspicion is precisely the engine of Islamophobia. In the United States, Senator John Cornyn and Senator Tommy Tuberville publicly announced a “No Sharia Act” in October 2025. On the House side, public communications around “No Sharia” legislation have been promoted by figures such as Congressman Randy Fine, with references to support from other lawmakers. Separately, Congressman Chip Roy has promoted a “Preserving a Sharia-Free America Act,” reflecting how the phrase has become a repeatable political brand rather than a response to a real legal takeover.
In the United Kingdom, the roster looks different, but the pattern is the same: claims about large numbers, claims about demographic replacement, claims about enclaves, and claims that Britain is “becoming” something else. Petitions have demanded bans on the basis of “85 courts,” illustrating how figures—accurate or not—become a rallying device. The Times has described the UK as a “western capital” for these councils and repeated the figure of 85 in its own framing, which then further recirculates through social media as “proof” that a parallel state exists. Meanwhile, fact-checkers and parliamentary materials keep insisting on what the public debate keeps forgetting: there is no legal authority here that outranks national law, and the uncertainty of numbers is routinely exploited by those who want certainty of fear.
All of this is producing something far more dangerous than the imaginary menace it claims to prevent: a widening social permission structure for hostility toward ordinary Muslims. The suspicion is no longer only about “law.” It bleeds into clothing, prayer, diet, family life, neighbourhoods, and identity—turning everyday religiosity into a presumed pathway to radicalisation. In this climate, even the most basic Islamic principle for minorities living in non-Muslim lands is erased: Muslims are religiously obligated to respect the law of the land they live in, and if a society forbids core worship entirely, classical teachings emphasise either compliance with law or relocation rather than rebellion. The modern anti-Sharia campaign, however, behaves as if Muslims are secretly trained to undermine constitutions—when, in reality, most Muslims are simply trying to preserve family norms, marry, divorce, and distribute inheritance in a manner consistent with faith while remaining loyal citizens bound by national law.
And here is the tragedy of misunderstanding that your narrative rightly points to: Western publics are often told that Islam is “incompatible” with Western civilisation, as if Islam is built on hatred of the West. But the deeper truth is that Islam obliges belief in the prophets revered in Judaism and Christianity, including Jesus (peace be upon him) and Mary—an interfaith common ground that is rarely highlighted in angry soundbites. When that commonality is buried, fear fills the vacuum. Demagogues then sell the public a simplified enemy: “Sharia.” It becomes a code-word, not for a real legal system in London or Texas, but for the presence of Muslims themselves.
If the aim is genuinely to protect women’s rights and protect citizens from coercion, then the honest path is specific reform: ensure civil marriage registration, strengthen legal aid and awareness, clarify that any religious mediation cannot pretend to be a state court, and prosecute coercion or abuse wherever it occurs—without turning an entire faith into a suspect class. That is what serious governance looks like. What we are watching instead is the conversion of ignorance into policy branding, and policy branding into social hostility.
This is why the new “ban Sharia” wave must be confronted with calm, verified facts and moral clarity. In the UK, we do not have “300 Sharia courts”; we have contested estimates of voluntary councils—often described in the range of about 30 to 85 in England and Wales, with no confirmed presence in Scotland in the cited independent review. In the United States, we do not have Sharia-governed towns; we have recurring anti-Sharia bills and rhetoric that treats Muslims as a fifth column even while the Constitution already governs the courts.
The time has come for philosophers, thinkers, and religious scholars—Muslim, Christian, and Jewish—to raise the level of discourse in public spaces, especially on social media where fear spreads fastest. If the West can learn once more to distinguish between a citizen’s private religious ethics and the public law of the state, then Muslims who live in the UK and the USA—obeying the law, contributing to society, paying taxes, raising families, and pursuing dreams—can continue to live in peace, with dignity, and with the freedom that Western civilisation itself claims to cherish.

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : On December 15, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order formally designating illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals as weapons of mass destruction. In his signing statement, Trump argued that fentanyl is not merely a narcotic but a chemical weapon silently killing Americans in numbers exceeding the casualties of modern wars. He stated that no foreign enemy since World War II has inflicted comparable annual losses on U.S. civilians. The order reframes fentanyl trafficking as a national security threat, elevating drug enforcement into the strategic domain traditionally reserved for terrorism, proliferation, and existential threats to state survival.
Trump justified the order on three grounds. First, fentanyl’s lethality is unprecedented: two milligrams can kill, and a kilogram can produce hundreds of thousands of fatal doses. Second, trafficking is organized, transnational, and violent, funding cartels that destabilize entire regions. Third, conventional law enforcement has failed to deter production and distribution. According to Trump, extraordinary deaths demand extraordinary measures. Congressional leadership reinforced this view. Speakers in both the House and Senate declared fentanyl a threat to national survival, arguing that when a substance kills tens of thousands annually and finances violent networks, it functions as a weapon regardless of delivery method.
The statistics driving this argument are severe. In 2023, the United States recorded 107,543 overdose deaths. More than 81,000 involved opioids, and nearly three quarters were linked to synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl. Although deaths declined in 2024, totals still approached 80,000. By comparison, total U.S. military deaths since 1945 across Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan remain under 110,000. Fentanyl alone now approaches that figure every two to three years. The administration argues that ignoring such losses would represent a moral and strategic failure unprecedented in American history.
Law enforcement data confirms scale. In 2023, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized 79.5 million counterfeit fentanyl pills and over 12,000 pounds of powder. In 2024, seizures exceeded 60 million pills. By late 2025, more than 45 million pills had already been intercepted. Fentanyl is cheap to produce, easy to conceal, and extraordinarily potent, making it ideal for criminal economies. Congressional assessments estimate annual fentanyl revenues for cartels between seven hundred million and one billion dollars. These funds finance corruption, private militias, weapons acquisition, and sophisticated money laundering networks across the Western Hemisphere.
The supply chain is well documented. Precursor chemicals, many produced abroad in industrial quantities, move through intermediaries before being synthesized primarily by Mexican cartels such as Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation. Distribution routes span land borders, maritime channels, and air cargo. Peer reviewed research estimates Mexican criminal organizations collectively employ between 160,000 and 185,000 people, rivaling state security forces in manpower. They recruit hundreds weekly to replace losses from arrests and killings, sustaining a violent labor economy. This reality explains why fentanyl trafficking increasingly resembles insurgency rather than conventional organized crime.
Yet the danger lies not in recognizing fentanyl as an existential threat, but in how that recognition is operationalized. Declaring a substance a weapon of mass destruction carries historical baggage. WMD labels have repeatedly justified preemptive and preventive action, bypassing diplomacy and international consent. Iraq remains the clearest warning. Once weapons of mass destruction dominated the narrative, diplomacy collapsed, military action followed, and a functioning state was dismantled. The result was sectarian conflict, mass displacement, and a prolonged cycle of instability that generated terrorism far beyond Iraq’s borders.
Today, similar logic risks normalization. Under a WMD framework, preemptive and preventive strikes become politically defensible, even when they violate sovereignty. Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Canada, and upstream suppliers are increasingly portrayed as failing links. If perception becomes justification, escalation becomes inevitable. History shows such actions do not eliminate threats but transform them. Civilians, not traffickers, bear the immediate cost. Economies collapse, institutions weaken, and populations are pushed into desperation. In such environments, radicalization follows. Those unable to confront overwhelming force directly retaliate asymmetrically, often against soft targets far removed from original battlefields.
This pattern has repeated after wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East, followed by retaliatory violence across Europe and beyond. Militarizing fentanyl risks extending this cycle into the Western Hemisphere. There is also a strategic contradiction. Drugs flow toward demand. As long as millions of Americans remain addicted due to despair, mental illness, and decades of pharmaceutical overprescription, markets will adapt. Destroy one route, another emerges. Bomb one laboratory, smaller decentralized operations replace it. No military doctrine can substitute for demand reduction and treatment at scale.
Fentanyl devastates not only consumers but also producer and transit societies. Mexico loses tens of thousands annually to cartel violence. Canada has recorded tens of thousands of opioid toxicity deaths since 2016. Drug economies rot societies from within. This is not a unilateral assault but a shared human catastrophe. That reality demands collective action: precursor controls, financial tracking, intelligence sharing, coordinated enforcement, and massive investment in treatment and rehabilitation. Such measures require legitimacy and cooperation. The United Nations framework exists precisely to prevent powerful states from normalizing unilateral force as routine policy.
The lesson of Iraq is not that threats should be ignored, but that force without legitimacy multiplies threats. Declaring fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction may awaken urgency, but if it institutionalizes preventive war, the cure will prove deadlier than the disease. Drugs kill silently. Wars kill loudly. Both destroy societies. Leadership is measured not by how fiercely a threat is named, but by how wisely it is confronted. Ending fentanyl requires saving lives, restoring dignity, and rebuilding trust, not violating sovereignty and creating new graveyards across an already fragile world.