Mumbai: After Taapsee Pannu, Swara Bhaskar, Kanika Dhillon and Richa Chadda, actor Samir Soni is the latest celebrity to hit out at Kangana Ranaut. Soni had hit out at Ranaut for her recent interview on actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.
“Sushant Singh Rajput’s death is a huge tragedy and he deserves justice. But, I am against anyone (including Kangana) who is using his death to settle their own personal scores. Deplorable! Stop shooting your gun off a poor dead man’s shoulder. Have at least that must respect and for God’s sake Kangana stop comparing yourself with Sushant, (sic)” he wrote.
“My personal opinion was that stories around Sushant’s mental health are extremely valid, given the number of suicides we have among youngsters. I thought that should have been discussed (in the TV interview). But Kangana just hijacked the whole thing, and people went on a witch hunt against certain people holding them responsible, ignoring the main issue of mental health that should have been the focus.”
Soni felt that the reason behind the drastic step Rajput took was ‘worth examining’ as it could have helped a lot of people. “It’s not the first time it has happened, so many TV actors have committed suicide. This could have been something that the society could have gained something from, but the whole debate was hijacked, and it was called murder,” he opines.
He further shares the way Ranaut spoke made him feel that she had “issues” with all the people she mentioned in her interview, and she was “using Rajput’s death to get even”.
He explains, “I’m not saying Sushant wasn’t under pressure. So, what a responsible person would have done is — attack these people, fair enough — but also explore other possibilities. If you were a logical human being, you would know that if a person was on medication, he was being treated for something. You don’t know for a fact if it was bipolar or not. What was the reason, why did he stop taking medicines — isn’t that worth examining?”
Soni admits he got “really upset” when Ranaut levelled allegations against a host of people including Javed Akhtar, Mahesh Bhatt and Aditya Chopra. “It was just ‘me, myself and I’. It came down to Mahesh Bhatt throwing chappals, Javed Akhtar saying suicide… it has become a tamasha, and in front of the common public ‘the dark underbelly of Bollywood’. I’ve been here for 20 years, it’s as good and as bad as any industry. There’s nothing evil happening here,” asserts the actor, who was a part of a debate on the same news channel a day after Ranaut’s interview.