Actress Pooja Hegde, who was last seen on the big screens in Deva with Shahid Kapoor, made a startling revelation about the dark side of social media and claimed that PR strategies are often used to target and pull down actors. In a recent interview, Pooja was asked about handling social media negativity and whether she has ever felt that someone’s PR machinery has worked against her.
While interacting with Filmfare, Pooja admitted that she has faced targeted trolling multiple times and was initially shocked by the extent of it.
“Many times, and to me, it was a shock. The one thing I’m really bad at is PR. I remember there was a time when I was constantly getting trolled by meme pages, and I was like, why are they constantly talking negatively about me? It looked targeted. People are spending a lot of money on pulling down other people,” the actress said.
The actress further shared that the trolling affected her and her family deeply. However, she tried to look at it as a backhanded compliment, reasoning that people wouldn’t spend money to bring her down if she weren’t doing well.
“When I found out about it, my parents and I were very bothered. But I also took it as a compliment because if someone feels the need to pull you down, it means you are above them. I kept reassuring my parents that it was okay. But after a point, it became too much. I found out that people were spending lakhs just to troll me,” she mentioned.
Pooja went on to reveal that when she asked her team to reach out to meme pages to understand the reason behind the negativity, she was shocked to learn that trolling was being orchestrated for money.
“I told my team to connect with the meme pages and ask them what the problem was. And they said, ‘This is how much they are paying us. If you’d like to stop it or troll them back, this is the amount.’ To me, it was just bizarre.”
The Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan actress expressed her disappointment over how people believe in online narratives without questioning the real reason behind them.
“People believe such things but don’t know why I’m being trolled or what the reason behind it is. Sometimes, I see a horrendous comment, go to the profile, and find that there’s no display picture or any posts. These are just paid bots.”
Meanwhile, on the work front, Pooja was seen in the recently-released film Deva which starred Shahid Kapoor in the titular role. The movie received mixed reviews from the critics, however, it failed to leave a strong mark at the box office. She will next be seen with Varun Dhawan in Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai. On March 21, Pooja jetted off to Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, to shoot an important sequence of the film.
