Bollywood celebrities play an important role in shaping up the society because of the impact they have on their followers. Each celeb has thousands of followers who want to know in and out of their life.
And thus, adding on to the responsibility of being a ‘celebrity'. But everything comes with its pros and cons. While being in the limelight feels good, it also acts as a barrier as well, especially when it comes to speaking up your mind on social media.
Here are some of the instances, where B-town celebs faced a backlash recently on social media as they spoke their mind leading to a controversy:
Salman Khan
Salman Khan is the latest addition in the list, because of the success of his recent release ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan'. Be it because of the success of the film, or any of the controversy related to the film.
As Bajrangi Bhaijaan is minting money and has entered more than Rs 200 cr club, the actor once again hits the news, but this time for all the wrong reasons.
Salman Khan took out Twitter and condemned the execution of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Memon saying his brother Tiger should be hanged instead. Infact the Dabangg actor stormed the social networking site with the barrage of tweets in support of Yakub Memon. He even called Yakub an innocent man and tweeted, “One innocent man killed is killing the humanity.”
The tweets resulted in an uproar against the actor and he witnessed a backlash from the Twitterattis over the issue. Salman received great criticism from everywhere such that, the Mumbai police had to beef up the security outside Salman's house.
Even Salman's father stated that his tweets are baseless.
Although, after the furore and protests, Khan retracted his tweets from the social networking site and apologized for defending the 1993 Mumbai bomb blast convict; the social network continues to slam the actor for supporting a terrorist.
Neha Dhupia
Actress Neha Dhupia has been a victim of the Twitter troll as well. It was when the monsoon hit Mumbai that the actress took it to the social networking site to express herself about the condition of Mumbai after heavy rains lashed the city.
The actress tweeted, "One rain n the city comes to a standstill. Good governance is not about selfies n makin us do yoga, it's making sure ur citizens r safe."
This was all to spark up a controversy and soon the actress faced flak over her tweet.
While the Twitterattis got personal and spoke about her "non-existent career", the BJP workers held protests outside her house.
After facing the backlash from Modi supporters, the actress clarified that she didn't intend to hurt anyone's sentiments and that it was the mere frustration of a helpless citizen of Mumbai.
She mentioned she does support the government's Yoga Day and Swachh Bharat Campaign and also hopes that her appeal to improve the civic amenities in the city will be taken in the right way.
Shruti Seth
In June 2015, PM Narendra Modi initiated the “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana” and launched a social media campaign where he asked parents to tweet photos of themselves with their daughters with #SelfieWithDaughter. The motive was to stop female foeticide and highlight the importance of girls and women.
While the heart-warming parent-daughter selfies went viral on Twitter, the campaign also invited controversy as well after actress Shruti Seth commented about the campaign.
Shruti tweeted, “A selfie is not a device to bring about change Mr. PM Try reform. #selfieobsessedPM”.
She also made another tweet saying, “Those defending the #selfie plan by the PM FYI change is needed in the illiterate parts where ‘no front facing camera phones exist'. “Think Seriously” get over your selfie obsession Mr. PM. Be more than a photograph. Come on!”
The actress faced backlash from the Modi supporters for her criticism on the social networking site with most of the comments being abusive and personal against Shruti.
Although Shruti deleted her tweet after the controversy, she posted an open letter on Twitter mentioning "as for my initial reservation about the initiative being nothing more than eyewash, I am deeply saddened to see that, in the end, I was proved right."
Bipasha Basu
Bipasha had posted a picture on her twitter account in which two girls were tying her shoelaces with a tweet saying, "I need to learn to tie shoe laces ASAP! Embarassed that I can't! No patience.. grrrrr! Promise I am not spoilt! Will learn soon."
This tweet of hers garnered a lot of bad responses for her where angry followers criticized her act and said she was promoting child labour.
Later, Bips clarified that the two girls were her sister and friend and not anyone's children.
Abhijeet Bhattacharya
Singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya, was upset when Salman Khan was sentenced to 5 years jail. Being upset is one thing, posting something insensitive a completely different thing.
To show his unconditional support for Salman he posted this on his twitter account,
“Kutta rd pe soyega kutte ki maut marega, roads garib ke baap ki nahi hai I ws homles an year nvr slept on rd”
His statement was criticized by many including Rishi Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha. He later apologized unconditionally and said that he believed in the Indian judiciary.
Rishi Kapoor
The beef ban had been imposed on India and celebs were reacting on it. One, however, took all the thunder as he was stuck in the middle of controversy.
Rishi Kapoor had tweeted this, “I am angry. Why do you equate food with religion?? I am a beef eating Hindu. Does that mean I am less God fearing then a non eater? Think!! ”
Next, he started receiving responses full support to respectful disagreement. Rishi Kapoor kept clarifying his stand for next days and one of them read this, “Knew this would go wrong!When did I say I have "Gau Maas"and I kill cows? Yes I eat beef where cattle are bred for food legally Not in India”
