Whether or not Joaquin Phoenix genuinely retired from his acting career to pursue his love of being the worst rapper in the world, or whether it is all a big goof perpetrated by a bored millionaire with too much time and self-indulgence on his hands is becoming beside the point. The point is that this is exhausting. We have officially spent more time as a people talking about this than Joaquin Phoenix spent thinking about it, which is approximately five seconds. He spent five seconds thinking about it. In between doing shots of liquid gold with a Thai prostitute in the back of his private Carnival Cruiseship. Did you know that he had all of the staterooms turned into one giant jacuzzi that circumnavigates the whole ship, and that he insists on the chefs creating a midnight buffet for 2,000 passengers every single night. Two robots hold the limbo stick for him. Rich people are weird.

Anyway, we should be done with this, but why stop now. It turns out that in Phoenix’s “final movie,” James Gray’s Two Lovers, there’s a scene in which he improvises a rap. Is it proof that he’s for real? Is it proof that he’s for fake? What it is, is after the jump.

The Playlist points out the following interpretation:

Now we’re not sure if his rap was written in the script, but something tell us James Gray doesn’t really write freestyles. This feels like pure unadulterated Phoenix, as in: a window to his soul and his new direction in life. Oh, yeah, and moments later in the film on the group’s way to the club Phoenix actually breakdances in the film too. No, we’re not kidding, the reverse worm and everything. Could it be that the career change is genuine and the writing was on the cinematic wall? You decide, but someone outta ask Paltrow in the press junkets, she looks positively perplexed in this scene at Phoenix’s rhyming attempts.

It seems equally logical that this poorly thought-out 30 seconds of improvised nonsense was the inspiration for a hoax as for a serious career change, but what’s important is that who cares anymore? The overwhelming media attention has really sucked all of the fun out of this thing, real or no. I would rather speculate on when this will all be over than on what it all means. How about now? Can it be over now?