After her appearance at the Cannes Film Festival, Alia Bhatt found herself at the centre of an online storm. While many praised her red-carpet looks, trolls were quick to dissect her fashion choices, with some social media users even claiming that a section of photographers appeared to ignore her during the event. Now, film critic Anupama Chopra has claimed that the backlash was part of a paid campaign driven by insecure actors.
Anupama Chopra on Alia Bhatt Cannes row
Recently, Anupama sat down to chat with actor Shahid Kapoor for a video on The Hollywood Reporter India. The remark came during the conversation with Shahid, when Anupama raised the issue of growing insecurity among actors today. Citing Alia’s Cannes appearance this year, she pointed to the trolling the actor faced online, and it being a paid PR campaign against her.
“So, we were at Cannes, and one of the first interviews I did there was with Alia, and then over the successive few days, I watched just the awful, graceless trolling and conversation and negativity and all of that, right?” Anupama said.
She continued, “And then a couple of days ago, somebody said to me that… And this is not somebody who’s just like an outsider, but somebody who is deeply embedded in the business, and somebody whom I trust… So, that somebody said that this was actually paid campaigning against her because actors today are so insecure. I said that doesn’t even make any sense. What is happening?” She then asked Shahid whether the actors are more insecure than they have ever been today.
The video of Anupama talking about Alia has emerged on social media and is catching everyone’s attention.
Alia gets trolled
After making headlines for her appearance at the Cannes Film Festival, actor Alia Bhatt found herself at the centre of social media chatter, with trolls taking aim at her fashion choices and some even claiming she was “ignored” by a section of photographers on the red carpet.
Later, Alia herself took to social media to give a reply to a troll who commented, “Nobody noticed you”. Alia shared a reel flaunting her regal look in a custom ivory silk saree-gown at the Cannes film festival. In the comments section, a person wrote, “What a pity, no one noticed you,” along with a laughing emoji. However, Alia did not hold back and replied to the comment. She wrote, “Why pity love? You noticed me :)” Several actors, including Sonu Sood, Ameesha Patel and Aly Goni, also came forward and defended Alia against the trolls.