Well, I was able to watch the whole interview! After I read a bunch of excerpts already and so on. I encourage you to watch it for yourself, and then come back and give your own opinion.
Let’s start with the lead up to this. Hrithik releases a statement, a brief statement. And then it is followed, after a day or so, by a very very long interview. An exhaustive detailed elaborate interview. And he looks incredibly uncomfortable the whole time, and keeps dropping into what are clearly comfort mantras he is using to get through it (“I have to walk my truth” “I am not a victim”). He says through out that he hates talking about this, hates doing this kind of thing, is not comfortable with it, and I believe him. Both because he looks physically ill (there is one moment he even half gets up out of the chair and then forces himself to sit back down), and because he has never been good in interviews or public appearances, it’s a thing with Hrithik, he’s just not comfortable talking to people. Oh, and his stutter shows up a couple of times towards the end, which is a real sign of how wrecked and exhausted he is. It’s a two hour interview, and it’s remarkably focused. He doesn’t talk about his divorce, his kids, his career. It is just a careful explanation of his experiences with Kangana start to finish. He doesn’t even talk about Kangana, refuses to take her name even (which also seems to me like a comfort technique, like saying her name will make it too real and upsetting and he won’t be able to keep talking), will not speculate about what she is thinking or doing or her motivations. Just describes his experiences.
So, what are his experiences? He worked with her twice, on two films he was headlining. He remembers her being very very good, and himself being “proud” of her and grateful to her for working as hard as she did for his film. And occasionally she would message him, between the two films, photos of her working out, stuff like that, and he would respond with a compliment, like “good job”. And then after a wrap party in Jordan while filming Krrish 3, at the end of the party, she asked if she could talk to him, ask his advice about her career and so on. He said he was very tired, he was going to bed, but they could talk on the plane tomorrow. And later that night, there was a loud knock on his door, and she was outside, he saw her through the peephole. And she wouldn’t leave. He didn’t want to open the door, so he called down to his assistant, and had the assistant get Kangana’s sister Rangoli and have her take Kangana away. And the next day he reassured Rangoli that these things happen, of course he wouldn’t talk about it to anyone, they would just forget the whole thing.
Months later, he was at Karan Johar’s birthday party and said something to her about how he had heard good things about Queen, which confused her since she said he had just emailed her that morning about her performance. He told her he never emailed her, and she seemed very upset. Later that night, he got an SMS message from her that was a string of abuses. And then an email from Rangoli asking him to explain himself, because he had been stringing Kangana along in a series of emails, one of which was attached to her message. Hrithik responded immediately that they had to figure this out, that it was not his email address, and so on. And all of these emails are in the public domain now, the entire exchange was part of Hrithik’s police report.
(Thank you Deccan Chronicle for already pulling photos from the night in question! Yes, they were both there)
For a month, nothing happened. And then he began to receive email after email from her, explicitly sexual, obsessive, detailed, disturbing. He read the first 30-50, the first 2 weeks, waiting for them to go away. And then when they didn’t stop, he had them sent to his spam folder and forgot about them. For almost a year. Until an article appeared in DNA from Kangana about her “secret love”. And that same day, the emails stopped.
Months later, he finally read the emails, after he hired a security firm (who is willing to testify, give interviews, talk to the police, whatever) to rescue them from spam. The final emails started happy, saying the article was coming out today, they could finally be together. And then over the course of the day, they turned increasingly abusive. Finally ending with a threat that he would be “permanently scarred” by this relationship.
The next thing that was odd for him, after another few months, is that he was told by someone that he couldn’t be invited to a screening because his girlfriend would be there and she asked that they not be there together. Which confused him, since he didn’t have a girlfriend. And then he started hearing this more and more, people teasing him, mentioning things, about his “girlfriend”. And it was in the press too, talking about “close friends” saying they were together, he had proposed, etc. etc. And Hrithik didn’t know what to do, how to fight this, he just shut down and waited and hoped for it to pass. He had already filed a police report at this point (I think), against what he thought was a catfisher tricking Kangana. He was still trying to wrap his head around this, thinking that perhaps Kangana was a victim, was confused.
Finally, there was the “silly ex” comment. Which was the first time she had actually publically said something to the media. And he was afraid that it was just the beginning. He hadn’t talked to her or interacted with her, because the police had told him not to. But now he consulted his lawyer, and wrote a letter to her which also served as a legal notice. And that is when it began to go public. And it just got worse since then. He has been waiting for a time to file a police report and talk about this, but he had to work around film releases, Mohenjo Daro (during the filming of which, the producer’s wife teased him about giving Kangana a ring and he didn’t know what to say), Kaabil, and Kangana’s Rangoon.
(I wish I could chalk Mohenjo‘s failure up to Hrithik’s personal trauma, but no, it was just a bad movie)
So, that’s it, that’s his whole story. And I’m gonna say straight out, I believe him. I’ve believed him all along, really. Because he has been consistent and minimal in his responses, while Kangana has been erratic and strange and talking much more. Things like the emails he clearly received from her, the police report he filed months before the story broke, the fact that there was absolutely no evidence, even airport departure and arrival photos, nothing to indicate they were anything more than co-workers. And the photo, which for me backfired since it was so easily disproved. Meaning all it proved was that Kangana was delusional if she thought it proved anything.
(Photo of him with Kangana and his wife from that same night. Which was released almost immediately along with a flurry of other photos from an assortment of people who were there, none of them with a particularly close connection to Hrithik or any reason to hate Kangana)
Plus, Hrithik is just too self-protective for this. That story of Kangana knocking too loudly on his hotel room door and he decided to just not answer it, that rang true for me. He feels like someone who is very good at instinctively protecting himself and avoiding drama. He doesn’t have to risk getting into a thing with an insecure odd much younger woman. He can play it safe and have a fling with someone who will never backfire on him. That’s kind of what his narrative supports here. He couldn’t be bothered, he just waited for it to go away. Safer to protect himself and do nothing than to confront Kangana, to try to argue with his acquaintances who believed her, just wait for someone else or something else to fix it. Just like everything else in his life has been magically fixed for him.
Although I wouldn’t be surprised if Hrithik also has something to hide. Not necessarily something “bad”, just something private that the larger world wouldn’t understand. Maybe he and Suzanne had an open marriage. Maybe he had a drug addiction in the past. Maybe he is bisexual. Something that the industry wouldn’t judge him for, and he doesn’t judge himself for, but it makes him cautious about getting into this mess. Plus, the fact that he says he responded to Kangana’s occasional texts even between the two films they did together, that seems like maybe on some level he was flirting a little. Heck, maybe they even had a one night stand. But none of that means he should suffer the 3 year nightmare he is describing now. It just helps explain even more why he was trapped.
I think Hrithik is truly a victim here and has been living a nightmare. This actually explains a lot of stuff. For one thing, as long as two years ago, I read an interview with him in which it was pretty clear he had a close relationship with a Guru. Which makes more sense if he has been going through this whole thing. He would need someone for psychological support and healing (and seems like in India, “Guru” is a more acceptable route than “therapist”). It might even explain his odd film choices, taking ones where he felt like he could “trust” the filmmaker, certainly it explains why he hasn’t signed a new movie since Kaabil, if he was waiting for this to come out. And the really dark thought I had, it might explain why he goes on so many exotic vacations with his kids. If he is afraid to spend too much time with them in country for their own safety. There was one email from Kangana where she mentioned planning to rearrange the kitchen in his new home. Which is scary no matter what, but is really scary if your small children are sleeping down the hall from that kitchen.
(Or maybe he is just doing the divorced Dad thing and trying to make the vacations amazing enough for the memories to last through the everyday life at Mom’s house)
On a lighter note, I love the very industry kid mentality of “protecting the film release is the most important thing”. I find that completely believable. Not just that he would put this off in order to protect his own Mohenjo Daro and Kaabil, but also Rangoon. Which wasn’t just Kangana’s film, but a whole expensive thing with a lot of other people who could be affected. There’s also a great industry kid moment when Arnab (the interviewer) tried to get him to say he was mad at Kangana using his name for film promotions. And Hrithik had this “nah, doesn’t bother me, it’s just promotions” reaction. He’s been around long enough, he knows when it is just for promotions and will blow over. And everything’s fair game for that.
Although in a way that same industry kid thing is what might have made this harder for him. Hrithik has never had to “sell” himself to anyone, media or fellow industry folks. His way was smoothed. He just had to work with his Dad and let his Dad handle things. Which meant when this came up, who could he talk to? Who would he be comfortable talking to? A handful of people he grew up with, and a bunch of strangers who worked with him on a few films but he never really bonded with them beyond that. It must have been such a terrifying experience, to realize that all but your closest friends don’t believe you. And to realize suddenly what a disadvantage you were at because of the limited number of close friends you had.
A final thought, I was watching this with a friend who lived in Delhi off and on for years, and she pointed out the class element of this. Not that Kangana was taken advantage of, not that part of it, but that the class Hrithik grew up in, and the very specific way the film industry interacts (which is the other thing Hrithik grew up with), has it’s own rules. And Kangana was not raised in that class, or that industry, and doesn’t seem to understand those rules. This is what struck me about her Koffee appearance, that she seemed to miss what was acceptable to talk about (jokes about personal appearance, about bad films they were in in the past, even teasing about rumored romances), versus what is not acceptable to talk about (calling someone bad at the thing they are proud of, in Karan’s case being a director/producer). So, if we theoretically expand that to the whole experience Hrithik is describing, Kangana would see someone being overly friendly and nice to her on film sets and what she thinks of as “outside of work”, at dinners and events in the hotel after shooting. And then he responds to her occasional texts, and invites her to parties and so on. And casually embraces her as part of a party game. All of that could be read, both to Kangana and the general public hearing bits of this story, as a sign of a relationship.
(See how incredibly uncomfortable she is making Saif, and she just doesn’t seem to notice? Because he knows she is crossing lines, and she does not know)
But what Hrithik is trying to explain in this interview is that, for him and for the film industry, that WAS work. As the star of the film, he had to make sure everyone was happy and comfortable (we’ve all heard the same stories about every other star, it’s part of their job to keep the set moving smoothly). The job didn’t end at the end of the day, hanging out at the hotel together, that was still a work event. And inviting for large parties, that’s part of the job too. You are supposed to build and confirm connections at these sorts of events, to not invite a former co-star in a major film would be a serious professional insult. It meant nothing to him, it was not intended to send any signal, and Kangana trying to point to it as proof just shows that she is unaware of how things work.
But none of this really matters. What became increasingly clear in this interview, and has already been kind of clear from the released emails, is that Kangana has an illness. It sounds like she has something called “erotomania”, which was first described in a paper by a psychiatrist in 1921. And it matches exactly what Hrithik is describing and what Kangana herself is doing, and what was written in the emails. Here, here’s a quote from the wikipedia entry:
Erotomania is a type of delusional disorder where the affected person believes that another person is in love with him or her. This belief is usually applied to someone with higher status or a famous person, but can also be applied to a complete stranger. Erotomanic delusions often occur in patients with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, but can also occur during a manic episode in the context of bipolar I disorder. During an erotomanic delusion, the patient believes that a secret admirer is declaring his or her affection for the patient, often by special glances, signals, telepathy, or messages through the media. Usually the patient then returns the perceived affection by means of letters, phone calls, gifts, and visits to the unwitting recipient. Even though these advances are unexpected and often unwanted, any denial of affection by the object of this delusional love is dismissed by the patient as a ploy to conceal the forbidden love from the rest of the world. The core symptom of the disorder is that the sufferer holds an unshakable belief that another person is secretly in love with them.
So, that’s pretty much exactly what Hrithik is describing, as backed up by Kangana’s own behavior and the objective evidence (no trip to Paris, thousands of emails with no responses, Kangana’s strange willingness to talk about this)
As I see it, there were three big problems for Hrithik in this situation.
First, his own personality. Uncomfortable talking to the media, very close to his family and few other people but no one else, with a natural self-protective instinct to avoid confrontation. It left him unable to cut this off once it began to be rumors in the film society, the way someone else could, who knew how to play the media and pressure the key parts of society to shut things down.
Second, that Kangana is also famous. They had actually met and worked together. Which made it harder to ignore her, and the media more likely to listen to her and report.
Third, that Kangana is so so sure. Which, according to the description above, is a symptom of the disorder. An unshakeable conviction which comes through in all her interviews on the topic. Unlike poor Hrithik who shakes and stutters and drinks water and forces himself to stay in the chair.
(very different from Hrithik)
Let me end by picking up on that final point. I, watching this from a distance, was pretty sure she was ill by a few weeks back at least, if not even earlier. To hijack all her interviews supposedly about her film Simran on this issue, to remain determined to present that photo as proof which was obviously not really proof, to continually repeat the story of a Paris engagement which was clearly false, that’s not healthy.
Not Kangana’s fault, but I am very angry at the Indian journalists. I read somewhere that Anupama Chopra was the only interviewer to start off by indicating clearly she would NOT be asking about Hrithik, and sticking with that. Anupama by the way also has a journalism degree from Northwestern University, one of the best journalism programs in the world. And part of a journalism degree is an ethics course. The very first element of Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics is:
- Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
Kangana isn’t exactly a child, or inexperienced. But someone in the middle of a manic episode or a psychotic break would definitely fall within a similar category. Balancing the public right to know with compassion should be a basic requirement of journalism, not something we forgive with “well, they are just looking for views”. You could as easily say “well, a doctor just wants more patients”. Sure, he does, but he is also supposed to do no harm! There is a standard that exists which you are taught, if you are actually taught anything, and which you have to make a choice to follow or ignore.
So, if I look at this whole story and try to find a “villain”, the closest I can come to is the journalists who sat in the room with Kangana and choose to drive her on to further heights, who ignored the voice in their head which must have been whispering to them “something is not right with this woman”.
If anything good comes of this, I hope it will be a greater awareness of mental health issues, how to recognize them, and the responsibility society has to protect those who are suffering.
dontcallitbollywood 
Your breakdown of the situation has solidified my opinion on this as well. I still find Kangana fascinating as an actress, but I suspect that you are correct here. She is unfortunately suffering from a mental health issue. I couldn’t finish watching the Rajeev Masand interview (the one where she really spiraled), but I really enjoyed Anupama Chopra’s because it stuck to actual discussions of acting. Chopra is one of the few ethical journalists/critics around the industry.
As for Hrithik, I think you’re right on that he is uncomfortable with stardom, with having to talk about himself and that’s why he comes across as a cipher or as vapid so often. And I honestly have never thought he was the sharpest knife in the drawer…and his sheltered and somewhat traumatic youth (the stutter and when his Dad was shot especially) hasn’t helped. In this interview, which I couldn’t watch much of because I felt so uncomfortable watching it, he clearly has no more options…the media, the situation, and Kangana have pushed him into a corner. I still worry that victim-shaming will still happen…because honestly, they both are probably victims in the end.
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I really really hope Kangana gets treatment and comes back to acting healthy and happy and is able to put all this behind her. Because she is extraordinarily talented.
With Hrithik, I could see the arguments of “you did this, you did that, you gave that message to her”. But at this point, it sounds like there is nothing he could have done that justified what he has gone through. And that Kangana’s reaction is not possibly proportional, but clearly a symptom of an illness.
On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 8:34 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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“and seems like in India, “Guru” is a more acceptable route than “therapist””
Nope. Most “gurus” are either cult leaders or outright frauds as just astrologers offering remedies. Not a good sign for him at all!
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Poor Hrithik!
On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 8:41 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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“versus what is not acceptable to talk about (calling someone bad at the thing they are proud of”
I would agree except Karan Johar is completely catty to both industry and non-industry people/journos and Sonam Kapoor is bitchy about other industry people.
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I can’t even point to a specific quote, it’s just that Koffee interview was odd. Karan and Saif’s body language was clearly saying they were uncomfortable with what she was saying, and Kangana’s body language did not seem to show awareness of the discomfort. It would be one thing if she went into it with the attitude of “I am going to blow the lid off of things and offend everybody and I don’t care”. But, to me, it felt slightly off from that, like she didn’t even realize she was blowing the lid off of things and offending people.
On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 8:48 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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She probably thought she had arrived in bollywood and she could say such things to industry insiders now.
How Karan and Saif both acted later on was completely shameful. They should be embarrassed. They do’t even have the mental illness excuse.
And that is exactly what makes me think– what if she isn’t mentally ill, just cornered and she think going to the press is a good idea now that she has a solo career?
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Apparently, Rangoli, Kangna’s sister, who a lot of people suspect is Kangana herself on Twitter, just posted a quote copied from Hrithik to defend her. Weird. Gave me the creeps because Priyanka also copies a lot of SRK quotes and passes them off as her own.
Both PC and Kangna give me such bunny boiler vibes. The only difference is that I think PC is does it in an extremely manipulative and calculated fashion for publicity and to make herself appear much more powerful through who she claims to be dating. Kangana, otoh, is clearly mentally ill. Even if they had a one night stand or something, nothing she’s doing makes any sense and is going to destroy her career. What she’s doing is so self-defeating.
This isn’t her only strange incident btw. She once got angry with Aamir because she assumed from a gossip article in the newspaper that Aamir was offering her a role. Then she got pissed that he didn’t tell her that he was replacing her. Except that he had never offered her anything in the first place. It was such a bizarre incident. There was another time a gossip article came out about how the Khans (mainly focusing on SRK) didn’t want to work with her. So she immediately went out and started giving interviews against them and how she never wants to work with them and how they can’t do anything for her career. She’s very odd.
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I was thinking about PC in this situation, or even Rekha, because yes, if you follow the “one night stand” or “bad break-up” theory, that is an example of, well, a literally “sane” way to handle it. You can be angry and bitter and want publicity and all those other terrible things. But still back off before it reaches the point we are at now. There’s plenty of bad break-up/affair stories in Indian film gossip history, and this is something different.
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And on a related but lighter note…Vaani Kapoor has been cast opposite in the Hrithik/Tiger film. Don’t get me started on Hrithik’s thing about only starring opposite new actresses, but I do recall he was really complimentary of Vaani’s dancing in Befikre. He clearly thinks they will look good together on screen. I kind of agree! Tiger is a great dancer I suppose…grumble grumble…and this film could be really fun!
Other casting news…Abhishek took over SSR’s role in R.A.W. So clearly he thought it best to find a starring role asap to resuscitate his career. I’ve seen him in enough law enforcement roles that I’m not too excited about this. I actually think his physical awkwardness comes across in his action scenes as well as his dancing. And I like this genre of film so I’m a little nervous. I actually think SSR or Sidharth or Shahid or even Ranveer would have been a much more interesting choice…unless the script calls for a more “veteran” spy character casting.
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I just saw that! I’m glad Vaani worked really hard in Befikre, and the failure wasn’t her fault, and I was worried it would backfire and end up hurting her career.
Agree about both comments on Abhishek, action hero I don’t see, but cool smartest guy in the room character, absolutely.
On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 9:01 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I kinda do agree with your assessment that kangana may be struggling with BPD. Her energy really is “there”. That said, it really doesn’t explain how sapped Hritik looked in that interview.
Sidenote: The channel Republic and the jouro Arnab Goswami are a running national joke right now because Republic is openly backed by the BJP and has strong pro-BJP biases which it doesn’t even bother to cover up. Arnab totally put on the “look at me being serious and thoughtful” show for this sit down and I distinctly got a Diana’s Panorama interview vibe from it. I watched that as a teen in some documentary and I was devastated by how devastated she looked. When I rewatched that as a grown up, it felt like she was putting on a show.
And that’s what this interview felt like. Hritik felt like he was putting on a show. If there was nothing there, why is he so devastated? why is he offering explanations on a matter that never happened??
My take on this: He’s trying to gain sympathy. Playing the victim. My question though is– why? If he just said “I was never in a relationship with her” industry people providing the proofs and circulating the same in the media would believe him and call her bluff won’t they? Unless, the industry people already know something about this and he MUST do something to push his narrative as true.
Being industry people, the family literally has seen scandals like these unfold. They know exactly what needs to be done. And that’s what the interview felt like.
Kangana is definitely having an episode but that wouldn’t change the facts if they really did have an affair.
His divorced wife offering public support definitely seems like they’re doing it to protect the kids but that still doesn’t make Kangana’s story untrue.
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My view is that they probably did have some minor relationship, whether it’s a one night stand or more, who knows. Not that there is any proof really but I found it really odd that Hrithik says big actors and producers’ wives were not inviting him to events because Kangana didn’t want him there. People were teasing him about her being his girlfriend. Something just doesn’t add up. Why would they believe that? Why would so many take Kangana’s word for it without even a word from Hrithik?
Even so, it doesn’t make sense for Kangna to have a public meltdown over stuff like this that probably goes on in the industry all the time. Something is clearly wrong with her whether she had something with Hrithik or not.
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Like all journalists, Bollywood press too knows much and only talks about what they think would be most beneficial to themselves.
I see Bollywood press’ interest in this and it makes me wonder if they’re fanning Kangana’s fire BECAUSE they already know the story.
If Hritik had an affair with her, even a one-night stand, he has no right to claim Kangana is lying about there being something between them.
Hritik could have spoken to any of the numerous Bollywood journos about the matter but he snubbed them all and went to a political journalist who has zero credibility within the public sphere (He recently claimed he was present during an incident which was called out as a lie by the journalists who actually were there while this mister was elsewhere).
Why would you go to a liar and a propaganda stooge journo if your story is real? Surely, a Bollywood jouro would be easier to find.
Or maybe no Bollywood journo wanted to help him do this side of the story.
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BW journas like Faridoon are openly siding with Hrithik so I guess he could have done that.
His choice of Arnab Goswami tells me he was trying to fan right-wing sentiment and get support from men’s rights activists and the BJP supporters who constantly act victimized despite being part of the most powerful strata of Indian society. A story of a poor innocent rich Hindu male being being victimized by a psychotic woman is exactly the type of thing they would be interested in.
For those who aren’t Indian, Arnab Goswami is like the Sean Hannity of India. Choosing him is not a great idea if you’re looking for credibility though the upper class loves him because he tells them what they want to hear. This had to be strategic move on Hrithik’s part. He waited quite a long time before making his movie so it had to be well planned. It was not something he did on impulse. His other interview was with Bhupendra Chaubey, another creep. He was recently in the news for his disgusting slut-shaming interview with Sunny Leone.
I do think Kangana is wrong for doing all this publicly but Hrithik’s choice to do interviews with people like this says something.
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Exactly!! I’m just hoping for a small-time actor/producer revealing something about this. The two sides are shady af. I dont trust either of their versions.
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I don’t know, I just have a simpler version of it. Kangana’s story is untrue, not because Hrithik says it is untrue, but because it is clearly false. Major parts of it have been disproved (no trip to Paris, no smoking gun photo) and nothing has actually been proved. And she clearly has some kind of mental thing going on right now, which could easily explain her own certainty. And the emails that were released are, well, delusional. They are not
“spurned lover” messages, they are something different.
And Hrithik is messed up because everyone in his life/the world thinks he has been lying for the past 3 years, which is also why he is finally giving this interview because just letting it go hasn’t worked. As a savvy industry kid, he must know that the smartest policy is to do nothing in this kind of situation. Just wait for the rumors to die, addressing them only makes them stronger. Like I said, I do believe that there could be something in his life that makes him want to be private, which he may not want the media to know, but it feels separate from this narrative, to me this feels like Kangana is suffering from a mental illness and Hrithik’s problems right now are a byproduct of her issues, nothing to do with himself.
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Other than as actors I have no personal knowledge about both persons involved (or even four if one counts Suzanne and Rangoli).
The way Kangana acted may have been reinforced by the demanding media and the support through social media…to become a woman flag bearer for emancipation is tempting in a time when feminism has become a subject of open discussion.
Hrithik had no choice anymore than to publicly react to the way Kangana dragged him into her promotional campaign. As there were already allegation about Kangana being delusional and mentally disturbed it could have been a strategy to boost that impression through the rather imposed interviews (I think Hrithik did two lengthy till date) where he would state only those facts which would speak in his favour contrary to Kangana who has stated things that turned out to be in favour of Hrithik.
If I had a say in this ‘affair’, I would take Kangana and Hrithik and drive with them to a place nobody knows about, put them in a room where nobody hear what they are talking, only watching them that they would not harm the other or themselves and give them time to sort it out and come to a decision. It could be worth a try.
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I agree with you, but I would still take it farther. What Hrithik is describing, what numerous facts back up, including Kangana’s own behavior, is something beyond all feminism or film promotions or personal issues. She is ill, Hrithik has been affected by her illness, and no talking or anything else is going to help until she gets treatment. The media and the public have turned it into a “mystery” or a feminist statement or any number of other things, but to me it really feels a lot simpler than that.
On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 9:49 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Oh, I also think that the ‘affair’ as such isn’t complicated. But sometimes you aren’t ill but you have manoeuvered yourself into a corner where you start to bite instead of leaving the corner. Time will tell.
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Curious about whether anyone watched Barkha Dutt’s interview with Kangana. I couldn’t bring myself to watch–would rather spend watching time on SRK-related things. Shock! What is Barka’s rep as a journalist generally? I’ve read one or two of her columns in the Washington Post, and I enjoyed her book, The Unquiet Land. But certainly the implication on social media seems to be that she’s as biased as Arnab, but on the left.
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She has a solid reputation. She’s the kinds that questions the government and army about atrocities on civilians in Kashmir. I wanted to be her when I was young 😛
Of late, the level of public discourse has plummeted. I don’t know why but she left NDTV which is a network preferred by the civil society to go write for Washington Post. Her views of late had become a little more left leaning than what was the standard for good journalism in this country.
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Hi Asmita Prasad,
I messaged you on your Contact page about your blog but haven’t heard back. Now found you here. Could you kindly take a look, thank you.
Regards
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I’m not into gossip and I know little about this case, but reading your post about Hrithik’s interview I thought: this woman surely has some mental illness.
Just the number of e-mails sent is not normal. Kangana’s friends say it was Hrithik who was sending those e-mails, but I don’t belive it at all. And all the stuff she has written, like: I saw you today, you are so sexy (…) I have so many things to say, but when I see you I forget everything, and don’t know what to say(..) when we’ll finally kiss I think I faint. C’mon I wrote things like that in my diary when I was 15 and had my first unreciprocated crush.
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Yes, that was my reaction. And for me, that kind of supersedes anything else. Whether or not they had a one night stand or even a brief on location relationship, Kangana is clearly ill and everything that has happened in the past two years stems from that, not anything else. And that’s what matters the most, that Hrithik and Kangana have both been tortured by this hallucination and the media has encouraged it. I hope Kangana gets treatment, and if she does, I hope she also unleashes some anger at the people who stood by and enjoyed the show and egged her on during this time.
On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 3:56 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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It’s all sad.
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Sincere question, just for clarification :
It’s my understanding that she furnished the police with the emails that she received. Assuming the erotomania theory (or other mental health abnormality), who is sending kangana emails, or relying to her emails to Hrithik? Hrithik himself? Someone catfishing her (using the hrithk acct or one that looks like his)? Or Kangana herself? And if it’s Kangana herself, would her mental state keep her from being aware that she is sending herself emails?
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First, I think it is possible that Kangana might not be aware she is sending herself emails. Or might be able to explain it in her own mind as “these are the emails that he wants to send as I can tell from the way he is looking at me and I am just writing them down”. I think there was another case where a woman wrote herself numerous love letters and believed they were from her lover, to the point of presenting them as evidence in her harassment case until a handwriting expert proved she wrote them herself.
Or alternatively, my friend pointed out that there could easily have been someone on set or around who noticed Kangana’s feelings for Hrithik and that they were not reciprocated, and jumped at the chance to send fake emails to her under Hrithik’s name. So it’s not some random catfisher who stumbled on this, but someone who targeted her knowing her weakness. That seems believable to me. Heck, Hrithik’s own story involves her at his hotel room in the middle of the night, him calling his assistant, his assistant getting Kangana’s sister, and so on. That means Hrithik’s assistant, hotel staff, any film crew member who walked down the hall while that was happening, would know there was something up with Kangana and Hrithik and could have been tempted to try to use the situation. Really, that doesn’t seem that unlikely.
Anyway, Hrithik filed a police report, gave the police all but one of his devices, and has records that his first immediate response to learning that Kangana had been getting emails from another account was “what’s happening? This is terrible, this is not me, we should go to the police”. Which would be a very odd reaction if he was actually sending those emails from the other account. And Kangana never went to the police, has not provided her devices, and I think has only released a handful of the emails from the other account.
On Thu, Oct 12, 2017 at 4:50 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Thank you for your clarifications and examples. 🙂
Minor point – by catfish, i didn’t necessarily mean random. I myself have been catfished by 3 diff ppl in my life, none were random, all were adjacent to a person i knew or an incident i was involved in. (Luckily i figured each out within 24 hours, so no major damage done). So it could, for example, even be a friend or sibling who hrithik’s assistant recounted an incident to.
Overall, I appreciate how you bring both your EQ and IQ to your analysis, then your confidence and care into explaining your view, always sifting the forest from the trees (or however that saying goes). Thank you for that. 🙂
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You’re smarter than me! It honestly never occurred to me that the fake-hrithik was anything more than a coincidence until my friend suggested that it could have been someone who knew the situation and took advantage of it. Which makes soooooooo much more sense than Kangana being ill and coincidentally also being tricked by a random catfisher.
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Per the Kangana emailing herself option, file the Farhan –
Deepika starrer “Karthik Calling Karthik” under the Life Imitates Art category.
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There are so many options about the way all this unfolded and which (known or unknown) people are involved in which way…maybe one day we will watch a movie with multiple ‘solutions ways’ inspired by this ‘affair’ 🙂
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This is not so related to Hrithik and Kangana, but to erotomania. I have no idea at all what’s going on with them.
Sometimes I browse “@iamsrk” on Twitter–just idly reading chronological posts, and I’m sure that at least two accounts I’ve seen over the last two years have been cases of erotomania. I have found both accounts truly fascinating, I have to admit. The details they include in their posts, of meetings and plans, and how they post to SRK and others associated with him to say they’ve received the message he’s sending in the latest interview, appearance, or tweet. It’s like some elaborate performance art. It must be truly unsettling to be the object of such a fixation. I pray for them to get treatment–but I also keep on reading their posts…
Aside from these accounts, it’s interesting the types of things fans (including me, as I’ve definitely @’d him!) write to him about.
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Fascinating how technology has changed things! In “olden days”, it would just be crazy fan mail that the star’s secretary reads and destroys (or files away just in case). But no one else, no one in real life who knows the fans, or anyone else who might be curious, would ever know about it. And now you know that these total strangers have this issue, and I suppose if anyone they know in real life ever found their twitter profile, they would know too. It’s no longer just between fan and star.
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Back during the Clinton administration, my Girl Scout troop volunteered in the White House reading and sorting the mail received by the first family. Because the scouts were in middle school, they gave us letters that, based on the handwriting, were from kids. Some were not from kids, and were very, very disturbing. There are some very sick puppies out there writing letters to famous people!
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Oh wow. I shudder to think.
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This all started when Kangana made a comment about a “silly ex”. At that point nobody knew who she was referring to, until Hrithik responded with a tweet saying that he would rather date the Pope. My question is why did he respond? If he really had no relationship with her he should have just remained silent.
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The rapport to Hrithik was clear because the question referred to a supposed collaboration of Hrithik and her in an upcoming movie.
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Oh ok I must have missed that connection.
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I don’t necessarily support Kangana here, I think she got too carried away during the Simran promotions, but it’s far easier for Hrithik to get support from the industry than her. Everybody from Farhan Akhtar to Yami Gautam to Sonam to KJo are supporting him; I think the benefit of doubt should be extended to both of them.
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I think, it is okay to support somebody…as long as it is a matter of heart and not of judgement 🙂
You know, I trust Kangana that she has her reasons to act the way she does…and I trust Hrithik that it is the same for him…apart from those two I don’t trust anybody because I bet that everybody has his personal agenda and uses either the one or the other. 🙂
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Yes I feel the same, especially KJo and gang are definitely supporting Hrithik ONLY because of his family background. It’s easier to be in Kangana’s bad books.
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Not sure if Hrithik is completely innocent, there was probably a fling or a few-nights-stand and Kangna expected more from the “relationship” after Hrithik divorced. But she is going the Parveen Babi way – clearly making up stories and incidents, and alienating everyone. I feel where Hrithik went wrong is after the first offensive Kangana fired. He preferred to let his PR do all the work – having DNA,Sarita Tanwar run stories about Adhyanan which severely backfired. Kangna was so confident -fighting her own battle when Hrithik kept quiet and let others do it for him. Its understandable why because he isn’t much of a speaker.
But I’m really glad Kangna called KJo out, I mean somebody had to! At least now people are talking about nepotism and filmmakers will think twice before casting someone solely based on their last name. Plus KJo is so catty and spiteful to outsiders that he totally deserved it :))
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Glad I’m not the only one thinking of poor Parveen Babi! Who was also used and abused by the media for headlines, allowed to give interviews when she was clearly incapable of using sound judgement.
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You will find lots of examples where the filmindustry (globally seen) and related media destroyed lives …that – by itself – could fill boooooks 🙂
If I ever would write a fanfiction about ShahRukh, it would be a story about a fighter for life.
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