Controversies that rocked Tamil cinema

Famous singer and radio jockey Suchitra Karthik became the centre of attention when she started hanging dirty laundry of many Kollywood celebs out in the open. The drama unfolded on Twitter when she accused Dhanush and composer Anirudh of drugging and sexually assaulting her at a party. She also went on to leak private pictures of Dhanush, Trisha, Hansika Motwani and even an alleged nude clip of actress Sanchita Shetty. As if that was not enough, she also alleged that actress Andrea Jeremiah, Anuya, Amala Paul and Parvathy Nair of having affairs with many actors in the industry. The actors in question were, of course, shocked and disgruntled by these claims and threatened to take action, but didn't do so, on the request from Suchitra’s husband Karthik, who claimed that she has been suffering from some mental issues. Nonetheless, the issue ensued a statewide debate about the dark nature of showbiz.

Dhanush's paternity case

As if his name being dragged in the dirt was not enough, actor Dhanush also dealt with a paternity case which caused great distress to his family. An elderly couple from Madurai, Kathiresan and Meenakshi claimed that Dhanush is actually their son who ran away from home to become an actor. They also presented a class ten certificate of their son and also claimed that they know certain personal identification marks on his body. Dhanush appeared before the Madras High Court and the couple’s claims about the identification marks were checked by doctors. The actor maintained that the claims from the couple are false and that it is a ploy to extract money from him. Eventually, the verdict came out in favour of the actor but it was a testing time for him nonetheless.

The Jallikattu row that erupted last year was not only a people’s movement; but also saw stars getting out on the streets and joining protests in large numbers. Almost the entire Tamil film industry unanimously supported lifting the ban on the bull taming sport. Actors like Simbu, Raghava Lawrence, GV Prakash and Hiphop Tamizha spearheaded the protests and were later joined by stars like Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan, Vijay, Ajith Kumar, Suriya among many others. Surprisingly, though, many celebs faced flak for their support of the sport and many claimed that they were stealing the limelight and diverting the real issue. In a state which adores and worships their celebs, such a response from the public was shocking, to say the least.

While celebs were against the Jallikattu ban, it was actor Suriya who took on PETA, the organisation who sought the ban, head on. The animal rights group sent a letter to Suriya which apparently accused him of using the Jallikattu issue to promote his film ‘Singam 3’ or ‘Si3’ which was set to release back then and added that it was extremely distasteful on the actor’s part to use an issue like this. Suriya took great offence to this and actually sent a legal notice to PETA with an ultimatum that if a public apology was not given in seven days, then the actor would proceed to file a criminal defamation case for their “slanderous” comments. Such an extreme step from the actor came as a surprise to many and PETA was forced to comply.

While many celebs seemed to be in favour of Jallikattu, but going by Trisha's tweets, she begged to differ. The actress took to Twitter to voice her opinion against the sport and in return faced severe backlash from pro-Jallikattu supporters. What’s more, the shooting of her film ‘Garjanai’ was disrupted by an angry mob, who even went on to damage the sets. A few enraged Twitter users even accused her of not being a true Tamilian and many even hurled obscenities at her. The actress too was enraged and said that people should be ashamed and that the way they are treating a woman shows their culture. She also added that her account was briefly hacked and that she too was in support of lifting the Jallikattu ban. After a while, the outrage died down but Trisha decided to quit Twitter as she was deeply disturbed by how she was treated on the social media platform.