'She's deeply creepy': What really happened when 59-year-old superfan Club Chalamet came face to face with Timothee and Kylie Jenner, the truth about the sneaky 'hug' that sparked security concerns... and why his team fear her next move

She has been by Timothee Chalamet’s side for most of his career but now insiders say she threatens to ‘overshadow’ what promises to be a golden awards season for the man described by many as the greatest actor of his generation.

And no, it’s not the mega-influencer Kylie Jenner, who has recently been on her boyfriend's arm at a string of star-studded Hollywood events in dazzling and revealing custom-made gowns.

This woman has a classic brown bob, horn-rimmed glasses and is considerably less glamorous, but no less fulsome in her admiration for the actor. She is his 59-year-old superfan, Simone Cromer.

And she will not have been impressed by Chalamet’s profession of love for his girlfriend of three years at the Critics’ Choice Awards on Sunday night.

But it was at an event that took place 24 hours earlier that Ms Cromer became the centre of controversy.

To kick off what is set to be weeks in the limelight thanks to the success of his new film Marty Supreme, the 30-year-old actor attended the Palm Springs International Film Festival in California with Ms Jenner, 28.

Wearing a dark orange dress with a plunging neckline from the Paris-based designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin, the mother of two by her ex, the rapper Travis Scott, beamed as Chalamet was honoured with the Best Actor award.

But I can reveal that, far from watching the proceedings at home in LA, Ms Cromer was sitting just yards away over Ms Jenner’s right shoulder at another table, staring at the couple through her distinctive spectacles.

Her presence so near Ms Jenner sparked security concerns because the Chalamet superfan has earned a reputation for harbouring an intense hatred of the beauty mogul and has attempted to drive a wedge between her and the Dune star.

Somewhat ironically, Ms Cromer, who – under her online persona Club Chalamet – regularly posts updates to her 600,000 social media followers, brands Kim Kardashian’s half-sister a ‘stalker’.

Ms Cromer also regularly blurs Ms Jenner’s face in photos of her with Chalamet and refers to the pneumatic former model as ‘Slurpee’, after the carbonated slushie drink sold by the 7-Eleven convenience store chain, an apparently pointed downgrade from the ‘Champagne’ nickname she gave Chalamet’s ex, Lily-Rose Depp, the actress daughter of Johnny Depp.

A source close to the couple told the Daily Mail: ‘It was certainly a shock to see Simone Cromer inside the event on Saturday night. It is such a special time for Timothee and Kylie, they don’t want to let anything overshadow it and Timothee is used to dealing with fans like a professional and with class.’

Another source told me: ‘She’s deeply creepy.’

While Chalamet and Ms Cromer have met face to face on several occasions, usually with her behind the barrier lining the red carpet at his film premieres, this is thought to be the first time she has actually gained access to an awards ceremony.

She either paid for the privilege – tickets for the cocktail hour, the dinner and the awards ceremony itself can be purchased for as little as £390 – or was given a ticket as a reward for her volunteer work at the film festival.

And she didn’t pass up the opportunity to say ‘Hi’ to her hero. A video obtained by the celebrity news website TMZ shows the moment Ms Cromer left her table to approach the actor, reportedly to wish him a happy birthday.

As the influencer rose from her seat, Chalamet conferred with his security detail and, amid the confusion, a hand can be seen in the corner of the TMZ clip snaking around his waist.

Chalamet momentarily greeted the woman before turning away to take a sip of his drink at his table, prompting Ms Cromer to walk off without acknowledging Ms Jenner.

Ms Cromer later told her followers on X: ‘Ok, so I gave Timothee a hug and said Happy Birthday here at the Palm Springs film festival gala. I told Brian [believed to be a member of the actor’s entourage] that this is Timothee’s year and he said he hopes so.’

When asked what happened with Ms Jenner, the Chalamet superfan said: ‘I was inches from her. No problems.’

But this view was not shared by many fans of the superstar couple on social media. As one person commented in response: ‘Someone get her a restraining order before she pulls a John Lennon. He definitely did not want that hug.’

Another poster added: ‘This account does feel like it’s going to have a dark ending at some point in the not-so-distant future.’

A self-described film critic – an apparent reference to her fondness for posting movie reviews on social platform Letterboxd – Ms Cromer has been called a ‘film nut’ by people who knew her long before her infatuation with Chalamet began.

Nearly a decade ago, she moved to Los Angeles from Michigan, where she graduated from the state university in 1996 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, to pursue her passion for celebrities and the entertainment industry.

Ms Cromer first became a fan of the actor in 2017 after watching Luca Guadagnino’s movie adaptation of the bestselling book Call Me By Your Name, a coming-of-age novel about a gay romance between a 17-year-old boy played by Chalamet and an older graduate student.

That December, she shared her first post about him on her personal Instagram account, revealing that she had a picture of the star as her desktop background.

When Ms Cromer launched her Club Chalamet blog in spring 2018, there was no sign of the malicious content that began to appear after he started dating Ms Jenner.

At first, she simply shared updates about his career and public sightings, as well as taking a leading role in online campaigns for him to be given awards for his various roles.

Ms Cromer now organises an annual fundraiser for Chalamet’s birthday and, last December, raised more than $2,000 for Odyssey House, a non-profit organisation that provides treatment for individuals living with drug and alcohol addiction, a cause inspired by the actor’s character in the 2018 movie Beautiful Boy about the relationship between a father and his crystal meth-addicted son.

Club Chalamet has come face to face with her idol several times, including a particularly memorable encounter at Coachella festival in April 2022, which she said was achieved with the help of ‘manifesting’.

‘The universe hooked me up! I met Timmy after Brockhampton!!!!’ she wrote under a selfie of the pair.

In her lengthy retelling of their supposed interaction, Ms Cromer claimed Chalamet ‘held onto me’ as they walked together throughout the festival grounds and expressed ‘how grateful he is to [sic] all the work I do for him’.

But it was during the release of Wonka – the movie prequel to the Roald Dahl children’s book Charlie And The Chocolate Factory – in late 2023 that Club Chalamet went into overdrive.

It was at the premiere of that film that Chalamet’s then rumoured girlfriend, Ms Jenner, sneaked into the theatre with her mother Kris to support the star.

Chalamet and Ms Jenner’s relationship had reportedly begun eight months earlier, in April 2023, but they didn’t make their romance public until September that year, when they were spotted kissing at Beyonce’s Renaissance tour in Los Angeles.

Unsurprisingly, Simone Cromer didn’t take the news well.

In a social media post that appeared to assume all Chalamet fans were equally disturbed by the couple’s first public appearance, she wrote: ‘If you’re feeling distressed by the video [with Ms Jenner], it’s OK. But please take care of yourself. Step away from social media for a couple of days.’

Ms Cromer claimed in another post that ‘Slurpee’s stalking paid off’ and alleged that Ms Jenner’s team ‘commanded’ Chalamet to appear with her at the concert.

The next day, Ms Cromer ranted about Ms Jenner on audio channel Twitter Spaces – now known simply as ‘Spaces’ on X – for more than 52 minutes and alleged the only reason Ms Jenner was seen with Chalamet is that she had ‘blackmail’ material on him.

After Chalamet and Ms Jenner made their red-carpet debut at the David Di Donatello Awards in Italy last May, Ms Cromer blurred out Ms Jenner’s face and attacked her for ‘attention hogging’.

Most recently, Club Chalamet made a plea for both fans and the media to drown out the ‘piggybacking noise’ created by Ms Jenner as Chalamet promotes Marty Supreme.

An insider previously told the Daily Mail: ‘Unless it starts getting dangerous, Timothee is not going to fuel or acknowledge the protest. He will continue to support the fun things his fans do, like the look-alike contests [which Chalamet turned up at in New York in October 2024], but he refuses to get involved with trolling.

‘He knows that Kylie monitors it and is bothered by it, but he wants her to know that it is just talk from jealous people who aren’t really his true fans.’

Ms Cromer will no doubt take issue with Chalamet’s speech at the Critics’ Choice Awards on Sunday night in Santa Monica, where he professed his ‘love’ for Ms Jenner.

Collecting his gong for Best Actor as the table tennis champion Marty Reisman, he declared on stage: ‘Lastly, I’ll just say, thank you to my partner of three years. Thank you for our foundation. I couldn’t do this without you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.’

If ever a dedication was calculated to enrage Club Chalamet, that was it. Quite how she will react, we will have to wait and see.