After Suniel Shetty’s angry statement blasting Bollywood folks over rumours that Ahan Shetty was thrown out of projects due to his high entourage costs, Ahan Shetty has now broken his silence on the issue. The actor was supposed to star in Sajid Nadiadwala’s Sanki, but reports suggested that he was ousted from the film due to high entourage expenses.
In a recent interaction with Hindustan Times, Ahan refuted all the allegations and called them untrue. He said, “I know there were articles written about me, saying that my entourage cost was high and that’s why certain films didn’t happen and none of that was true. I knew that, people close to me knew that and my producers knew that too.”
Ahan admitted that one has to be “thick-skinned” to survive in the industry. The actor added that he is prepared for “worse” rumours about him in the future. “Going forward, it might get worse. These things affect you, but you shouldn’t let it bother you too much because everyone has the right to their own opinion and that’s life. You learn from it and move on.”
The rumours hurt Ahan, and though he bagged projects like the multi-starrer Border 2, along with Shaad Ali’s new film and a few other projects during the four years since his debut in Tadap (2021), he battled self-doubt and saw people around him change. “When Tadap came out, there was still technically lockdown. We were at 50% occupancy in theatres, and a lot of theatres weren’t even open and after four days, we went down to 25% capacity and we lost five states.”
He added, “For the year after that, it was very up in the air in terms of the industry, films weren’t working, people weren’t going into the theatres. So, a lot of self-doubt crept in. I also lost a lot of people in that time in terms of not being with them or not being friends with them anymore. So that also taught me who’s there for you at your highs and your lows. It was a lot of life lessons and many lessons in terms of my career.”
When Suniel Shetty accused Bollywood of targeting Ahan Shetty
The original 1997 Border film saw Suniel Shetty play a pivotal role, and now his son is carrying forward his legacy by starring in Border 2. However, in an old interaction with Zoom, Suniel accused Bollywood folks of running negative PR against his son and trying to jeopardise the film. He said, “Ahan let go of a lot of opportunities because of Border 2; he missed out on a lot because of the ego of others. He was thrown out of those films, and he was blamed for it in the press. They said that he has a 10-person entourage; people paid lots of money to get negative articles written about him. Do you think I don’t have connections? Do you think I can’t do the same thing?”
He continued, “I still pay for my own food. I spend my own money to this day, not the producer’s. And that’s how Ahan has been raised. I’ve never spoken about this, but I’ll say this now. All this negativity was orchestrated because Ahan wanted to do Border 2, and people wanted their films to take off and not Border 2. If this continues, I will hold a press conference and expose each and every person’s name. Jiski dhajjiyan udani hain, uda dunga. That child’s obsession is Border.”
