Actor Taapsee Pannu has responded to her Pink co-star Kirti Kulhari‘s recent claims of being “sidelined” during the promotion of their film. According to Taapsee, she was completely unaware of Kirti’s feelings at the time, adding that she is sure Kirti had her reasons for making those claims. Also read: Kirti Kulhari had a ‘meltdown’ on being sidelined during Pink promotions for Taapsee Pannu: ‘I took PR game personally’
Taapsee breaks silence on Kirti’s snub allegations
In an interview with The Times of India, Taapsee responded to Kirti’s claims of being sidelined during the promotions of their 2016 film Pink.
Taapsee said, “How would I know? She has the full right to feel the way she does. I would be the last person to tell someone what you are feeling is wrong. If someone has felt a certain way, I’m sure there’s a reason. That person voiced whatever they did. Had I known that she felt sidelined in any way, I would have liked to speak to her at that point and ask if there was something I could do to make it better. Unfortunately, I did not know there was an issue at that point. So, I don’t know what to do with it. I can’t discard her feelings.”
Talking about her equation with Kirti, Taapsee added, “Since she saw our relationship or situation in a certain way, maybe she felt the distance from me. I always kept it professional with her, and I still do. I worked with her in Mission Mangal as well, and I don’t think professionally anything changed for me, because from where I saw it, I did not see any disparity. So, for me, it was the same girl who I worked with in Pink”.
What did Kirti say
In conversation with Fever FM, Kirti opened up about how she felt ‘sidelined’ during the promotions of her film Pink, saying that Taapsee had become ‘the Pink girl’.
Kirti said, “When Pink happened, for me, there was never a thought, ‘Who is big or small’ in terms of their status in the industry. I was like it is a story of three girls. That’s how I saw it. I came from a space where I believed ‘We are all actors. We are all together’. But Pink made me feel a lot of ‘big star-small star’ treatment. The people around you make you feel that way.”
She admitted that she was taken aback by the trailer as it contained only Amitabh Bachchan and Taapsee, but Shoojit Sircar assured her the film would be different.
“I saw the trailer was mainly filled with Taapsee and Mr Bachchan. That was first jhatka for me because I know what I have done in the film. Shoojit was like, ‘Don’t worry about it, let the film come out.’ I never do PR. I believe my work will be eventually seen. However, during the promotions, the PR machinery happened for Taapsee because she came after Mr Bachchan (in terms of hierarchy) in that film. Eventually, it became her film and she became the Pink girl in terms of positioning and I saw that happening in front of me. This was the first shocker for me because I couldn’t understand this,” she added.
About Pink
Directed by Shoojit Sircar, Pink is a legal thriller that starred Amitabh Bachchan as a lawyer who fights the case of three women who were assaulted by a politician’s son. The film was critically acclaimed and commercially successful, earning ₹157 crore. The film was remade in Tamil as Nerkonda Paarvai (2019) and in Telugu as Vakeel Saab (2021).
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