Samay Raina on India’s Got Latent controversy, says police forced to delete all episodes

Comedian Samay Raina and YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia faced one of the biggest controversies of 2025 following backlash over controversial comments made during an episode of India’s Got Latent. A year after the major controversy, Raina has addressed the issue that brought his world crumbling down.

In his comeback stand-up special Still Alive, Samay mentioned Ranveer Allahbadia’s remark that triggered the controversy. This led to an FIR being filed against the hosts of the show, Apoorva Mukhija, YouTubers Ashish Chanchlani, Ranveer Allahbadia, and Samay himself.

Speaking about his comments, Samay said that, ''There’s no future left for this artform.”

Talking about the impact on his mental health, he said,''At least he knows meditation. I don’t know anything. Beer Biceps… the monk who sold my Ferrari,” he added.

Controversy was around one of the episodes of India’s Got Latent where Allahbadia, aka Beer Biceps, made a statement about parents and sex during his interaction with a contestant.

“Would you rather watch your parents have sex for the rest of your life or join in once to make it stop?” This what led to to start of the whole controversy.

Samay Raina on making India’s Got Latent and more

As India's Got Latent came under controversy, several FIRs were filed against the show, its makers, and those present in the video, including Samay. As the backlash grew, they were forced to delete all the episodes of the YouTube series.

Speaking about how wholeheartedly he created the show, Samay talked about the heights it reached, with over 4 crore unique devices watching it.

“Raaton raat pura show hatana pada. Maine bahut mann se banaya tha woh show. Sab dekhte the pata hai. Humne YouTube se stat nikala tha, monthly 4 crore unique devices pe log mera show dekhte the. 100 mein se 4 log humara show dekhke hass rahe the (Overnight, we had to take the entire show down. I had made that show with a lot of heart. Everyone used to watch it. We started from YouTube and every month, my show was being watched on 4 crore unique devices. Out of every 100 people, 4 were watching our show and laughing.)”

Mumbai Police forced to delete the episodes, arrested my editor

The comedian was in the US when the controversy began. Speaking about that time, he shared that he was against deleting all the episodes, but was eventually forced to remove them after the Mumbai Police arrested his editor.

“I never wanted to remove it. Main US mein tha aur mujhe Mumbai Police ka call aaya ki aapko saare episodes abhi hatane padenge. Maine kaha mai nahi hata raha hoon sir, I live in a democracy, we have freedom of speech. Toh mera editor arrest kar liya unhone. (I was in the US, and Mumbai Police called me to tell me to delete the episodes. I refused, saying I live in a democracy and have freedom of speech. So they arrested my editor).”