Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was recently subject to a meme which paralleled her past and present relationships to the current general elections. The meme featured Aishwarya with Vivek Oberoi, Salman Khan and Abhishek Bachchan. It went viral and eventually reached Vivek, who tweeted it and took it in jest. Read more about it here.
But, seems like a lot of the Twitterati and netizens weren’t happy with him encouraging the meme on social media. It was certainly a meme that was not very tasteful, as it wasn’t very respectful of her personal life. It was met with a lot of condemnation on social media, stating he wasn’t being respectful of a woman’s sentiments and private life. Among the many people who bashed him for sharing the meme was Sonam Kapoor Ahuja. She stated that his act was “Disgusting and classless.”
Here’s her tweet:
Reacting to these comments, Vivek spoke to ANI and refused to apologise, saying he didn’t think he did anything wrong. He even lent his opinion about Sonam Kapoor’s reaction, asking her not to “overreact”.
Here’s what he had to say to her:
Aap apni filmon mein thoda kam overact karein aur social media pe thoda kam overreact karein. (You try to overact less in your films and overreact less on social media.) I’ve been working in women empowerment for 10 yrs now. I don’t think this is hurting anyone’s sentiments.
Later today, in a sudden change of heart, he took to Twitter and apologised to anyone who was hurt by his sentiments.
Here’s what he tweeted:
Sometimes what appears to be funny and harmless at first glance to one, may not be so to others. I have spent the last 10 years empowering more than 2000 underprivileged girls, I can’t even think of being disrespectful to any woman ever. Even if one woman is offended by my reply to the meme, it calls for remedial action. Apologies tweet deleted.
On the work front, Vivek’s next film – PM Narendra Modi – is finally releasing on May 24th after a lot of back and forth and controversies. The film is a biopic on the PM and the actor is playing Narendra Modi.