I wasn’t making fun of anyone: Tapsee Pannu
Taapsee Pannu’s hardhitting performances in movies such as Pink (2016) and Naam Shabana made everyone sit up and take notice of her. The actor, who had made her debut in 2010 in the movie Jhummandi Naadam, directed by K Raghavendra Rao, a legend of Telugu cinema, is now being trolled online for allegedly mocking the latter. Recently, the actor referred to Rao’s penchant for “showing [the heroine’s] midriff and throwing fruits and flowers at it” in a chat with the comedy group, East India Company. This was said as part of Taapsee’s anecdote about her first film, but this got angry reactions from his fans. Comments such as “ungrateful”, a “hypocrite” and a “backstabber” for supposedly forgetting her roots and taking a dig at such a veteran flooded the internet.
Talking to HT Café, Taapsee says, “Er, what did I take a dig at? He’s known [for] that. I have stated a fact, and if you’re taking it in a derogatory manner, that’s your problem.”
She adds, “Trust me, both of us are unperturbed by whatever I have said. I’ve seen the video and he has seen it too along with his family, and we are all laughing at it.”
Maintaining that she didn’t say anything “disrespectful” about anyone, Taapsee quips that the only person she “disrespected or made fun of ” in the entire chat video was herself. In it, she had said, “When my turn came, maybe because my midriff wasn’t quite ready, they threw a coconut on me. I don’t know what is so sensuous about a coconut hitting my midriff.”
She says, “I still stand by all of that. Whatever I mentioned there was not to make fun of anyone expect me, and it was purely on the basis of facts. I didn’t say anything derogatory or disrespectful to anyone. If people are just going to sit there and wait [for a chance] to get hurt, so they can start throwing shit at other people, you can never stop them.”
Taapsee, who is doing a Telugu film (titled Anando Brahma) after several years, adds that as soon as the negative reactions surfaced, she made it a point to clear the air with K. Raghavendra Rao. “The only person I was concerned about was my director and his family, and I got [a] good response from them. They told me that they all sat together and saw the video, and laughed at it, and I guess that’s all that matters,” she says.