Saif Ali Khan gets angry at celebs for 'gaining mileage over tragedy' over Sushant Singh Rajput's death

As a virtual cold war ensues between different factions within the Indian entertainment industry over the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, Bollywood’s Saif Ali Khan spoke about stars pretending to care over his death.

He slammed the celebs and called the death of Sushant Singh Rajput “awful” but hit out at those “talking rubbish” in the midst of this tragedy.

In an interview he said, “There are so many people who’ve made comments so quickly. And it just seems to me that people are somewhere gaining some mileage from this poor fellow’s tragedy, you know, whether it’s to show compassion or to show interest or to show some political stance. So many people are talking rubbish in this nonstop kind of barrage on social media and it’s just embarrassing, really, I think.”

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“Out of respect for him, for Sushant’s tragedy, maybe a day of silence or introspection would be a little more becoming than this outpouring of love – an outpouring of love from people who obviously didn’t care about him and people who famously don’t care about anybody else,” he said.

Saif pointed out that the industry as a whole is famously competitive and thus pretending to care is an “insult” to Sushant Singh Rajput. “I mean, we don’t care about anybody. You know, it’s a very cutthroat line of work. But to pretend that you do care is like the ultimate hypocrisy and I think that’s an insult to the dead, you know, it’s an insult to the soul that’s gone,” he said.

“We live in an age where people write 10 lines for you on Twitter and will walk past you on the street - won’t even touch you or shake your hand. You know, you get wished for your birthday, but people don’t actually call you. There’s no contact. People are failing people constantly. Everyone talking about him, even those saying who failed you or didn’t fail you is, I think, somewhat exploiting his name. To take any stand at the moment, apart from just sorrow, and just saying that I’m really sad that he had no way out except this - any other comment is somewhere manipulating the situation, I feel. You have come across this as an opportunity to take a shot at somebody, and you’re taking a shot,” he added.

On not taking any sides, Saif added, “These are the wrong comments to make now. I mean, you can say, listen, it’s just really bad, what happened. It’s really sad that this is the only way he could see out. But to blame anybody or to you know, draw these camps out, this is pathetic. I think it’s a function of lockdown plus social media. And it’s sad that film people can’t think beyond films. We will all assume that this terrible thing happened to him because of his films. There is more to life. Maybe he was upset about other things in his life. Maybe it was a personal reason. Maybe it’s nothing to do with films. If you can’t see beyond that, you will put everything on that – the movies you do.”

Ever since the news of his suicide has spread, celebs have poured tributes for the actor, with some mourning his loss, some expressing shock while others slamming this very nature that is patronising for others.