‘Dumbfounded’ by Kangana Ranaut’s nepotism claims: Emraan Hashmi

Emraan Hashmi recently spoke about the nepotism debate in Bollywood and even commented on the negativity towards the industry after COVID-19. During the promotion of his latest web show, ‘Showtime’, Emraan shared his views on Kangana Ranaut’s claims of nepotism in Bollywood. During an interview with a leading media house, Emraan praised Kangana and revisited the time they worked together in ‘Gangster’.

During the conversation, when Emraan was asked about the perception of the industry after the pandemic, he said, “There was a lot of negativity towards the industry after COVID and even after the Sushant Singh Rajput episode and the ‘boycott Bollywood’ trend for that matter. There was a resentment, where the entertainment industry was focused singularly.”

Keeping his views over the Kangana Ranaut-started debate on nepotism in Bollywood, Emraan said, “I like Kangana a lot personally, as an artist and a person. Maybe she might have had some bad experiences in the film industry. My experience with Kangana was such that I had given a hit that time, but still in ‘Gangster’ I took the villain’s role, where she was given center stage. It was almost like a female-centric film. So, I don’t know when this perception about the industry started and people started saying that we all are drug addicts or the industry only works through nepotism. I think it’s dumbfounding and not true.”

It was in 2016, when Ranaut called director-producer Karan Johar the ‘flagbearer of nepotism’ and ‘movie mafia’ and accused him of giving her a tough time professionally, during one of the episodes of ‘Koffee With Karan’. Now, almost eight years later, a web series called ‘Showtime’ has been made, which is also built around the premises of nepotism in the industry.

On the work front, Emraan was last seen as a villain on the big screen in ‘Tiger 3’. Next, he will have a cameo in Sara Ali Khan’s ‘Ae Watan Mere Watan’.