You can't mess with them!

Taapsee Pannu learnt it the hard way. The actress was bitterly criticised after her jovial remarks on director K. Raghavendra Rao. It created a huge stir; she was trolled so much that she finally apologised and clarified that she was making fun of only herself. Manasa Himavarsha is another name in the eye of a raging storm. Her jibe at Jr NTR’s TV reality show did not go down well with the actor’s fans and she got a nasty dose of Internet trolls after her cynical post. “I was approached for the Telugu version of Bigg Boss, but turned it down because the organisers wanted to make the program controversial and spice up the episodes. Since I don’t fit into such a category, I felt I did a good thing by not participating in the show to make a fool out of myself. That’s what I posted! I guess NTR fans thought I was mocking the show, and trolled me. I finally had to apologise,” Manasa explains.

Speaking about the Tapsee incident, Manchu Lakshmi says, “I guess her words have been taken out of context. Nobody has the guts to say things upfront, but will voice out opinions on social media. It is wrong to personally attack someone just because they have access to social media. I call it a mob mentality and she did not say anything new that has not been said before.” Recently, Dil Raju faced the wrath of Chiranjeevi fans after he said that the collections of Duvvada Jagannadham crossed that of Khaidi No.150. The Chiru camp took it as a huge insult — how dare anyone say their film did better than megastar’s film? After a huge hue and cry, Dil Raju had to clarify.

“The collections of DJ will be Allu Arjun’s career best and it is a hat- trick for our production house (after Shatamanam Bhavathi and Nenu Local). I have not drawn any comparisons to Chiranjeevi’s film, I was misquoted. A few fans approached me about the collections of DJ and asked whether I could show the records to prove the collections!” he said. Last year, Allu Arjun too landed in a controversy after he refused to speak about his uncle Pawan Kalyan at a filmi do. When fans of PK demanded that Allu Arjun speak/praise their favourite actor first, the stylish star said, “Cheppanu brother” (I will not talk). This snowballed into a huge debate and the actor later had to explain why he refrained from speaking about his uncle.

“I feel the cast and crew of the film should be given an opportunity to talk about their experiences. But there were a few fans who were purposely demanding that I talk about Kalyan (Pawan) garu, which I felt was irrelevant and unreasonable. So I appealed to fans to be more sensible and to correct their behaviour,” reasons Allu Arjun. Jr NTR too wasn’t spared. He was at the receiving end some time ago when he claimed (in his films) that he is NTR’s Natavarasadu (successor). This did not go down well with Balakrishna’s fans. Spewing venom in the social media, fans of the senior actor targeted Jr NTR till he eventually explained, “I am not NTR’s successor, I am just his grandson.”

What I discussed with Raghavendra Rao Garu is personal: Taapsee!

Nobody forced me to apologise. At first, people were complaining that I should apologise. When I did so, they say that I am being forced! I realise people have a problem anyway. The reason I apologised was because I wanted peace. I knew I didn’t mean anything like it was being interpreted. In my apology video, I even explained the actuality of it and how, playing just an edited version of the video, has led to the misunderstanding. I made it clear that if someone was offended, I am sorry, but I was making fun of only myself! Apologising doesn’t make a person big or small, and so I decided to say it anyway. If people have accepted it, I want them to watch the complete video and understand the context of my statements, and the agenda behind it. I felt bad that people are judging me based on something that was taken totally out of context. I even spoke to Raghavendra Rao garu about what had happened, but about what we discussed, I’d like to keep it personal.

Other instances

Few years ago, even Samantha became the target of trolls, when she tweeted about a poster (from 1 Nenokkadine), which shows Kriti Sanon crawling behind Mahesh Babu along a beachside, calling it ‘deeply regressive’. The online furore generated by the tweet just refused to die down, and annoyed fans bullied her and started trending the hash tag #GetLostSamantha.

Veteran actor Rajasekhar made a statement saying he will not join Chiranjeevi’s political party (if he floats a new one) back in 2008, because the Megastar lacks political experience. Chiru fans took offense and chased Rajasekhar, pelted stones and broke the window panes of the car he was travelling in. The actor and his daughter were badly injured and deeply shaken up by the incident.