It’s Tim-Houthi Chalamet! Yemeni TikToker sparks admiring comparisons

A young Yemeni man has been dubbed Tim-Houthi Chalamet over his striking resemblance to the Wonka star after filming himself on a cargo ship seized by Houthi rebels last year. 

The wavy-haired TikToker posted a video of himself approaching the huge Galaxy Leader vessel that was captured by the Iran-backed group in November, sparking the admiring comparisons with his Hollywood lookalike.

A second clip then showed him posing on the deck of the tanker, his phone in one hand and a red, white and black Yemeni flag flying in the other, with one social media user writing that their ‘timbers’ had been ‘shivered’. The Galaxy Leader was hijacked by at least ten armed Houthis in the Red Sea on November 19, who used a helicopter to board the vessel. Since then, it has been moored in waters off the coast of Yemen and turned into a tourist attraction at Ras Issa port, around five miles from the village of As-Salif.

A number of Yemeni social media influencers have climbed aboard since, sharing videos of themselves on the deck of the cargo ship. Pictures have shown them walking along the deck waving both Yemen and Palestinian flags, flaked by armed men who are presumed to be Houthis. The clips have been shared widely online having been posted to platforms such as TikTok and YouTube by the influencers revelling in the vessels’ capture while showing their support for Palestinians and the people of Gaza.

The latest video to catch the attention of netiziens was posted in recent days by a man named Rashid Al Haddad, according to his social media profiles. In the first clip, Rashid is seen approaching the Galaxy Leader on a smaller boat, filming his face as the Israeli-linked ship looms in the background. A second man is seen on the bow of the small boat, navigating it towards the ship. In another clip, he is then seen standing on the deck of the Galaxy Leader, waving the flag of Yemen, while a third clip shows him below deck, walking through a large empty space that likely once held some of the ship’s cargo.

A picture of Rashid then showed him back on shore, the vessel in the distance. Users online were quick to note his resemblance to Hollywood superstar Timothée Chalamet – who has had starring roles in films including Wonka, Dune, Little Women and the French Dispatch, with one netizien even dubbing him ‘Tim-Houthi Chalamet’. ‘Why is Timothy Chalamet working with the Houthis?’ another joked on X. Others commented on how attractive they found Rashid, with one writing: ‘That guy should be a model.’ Another simply wrote: ‘Shiver me timbers.’

In a similar theme, another person wrote on X: ‘100% that pirate is going to be on a fashion week catwalk this year,’ while others complimented his coat. Despite the comments assuming Rashid to be either a pirate or a Houthi rebel, MailOnline was unable to confirm one way or another. There was nothing to suggest in his limited social media activity that he was a member of the Houthi, however – according to his TikTok account – an earlier iteration of his account of the platform was recently banned. MailOnline has reached out to Rashid for comment.

The Galaxy Leader was travelling between Turkey and India when it was seized on November 19, one of a number of vessels to come under attack by the Houthis. Yemen’s rebel group, who control a swathe of the country’s west, say their attacks on ships in the Red Sea are in support of Palestinians, amid Israel’s on-going invasion of Gaza sparked by the October 7 Hamas terror attack against the Jewish state. The attacks have disrupted the vital shipping lane that sees vessels travel up and down the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal. Several companies have rerouted vessels around the southern tip of Africa to avoid the dangers in the region, adding several days to each journey.

The main East-West route makes up about 12 percent of global shipping traffic. On Monday, the Houthi movement vowed to widen its targets in the Red Sea region to US ships, following US and British strikes on its sites in Yemen last week.

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