From Sudhanshu Pandey receiving hate mails to Aishwarya Sharma being cursed to die; TV celebs who got harassing messages for their negative roles

Audiences very quickly get attached to characters on screen and they often tend to forget that it’s not real life. Celebs, who play negative roles are often prone to receiving hate from audience in real life for their reel roles. While most of them say that it makes them feel good as it shows they are doing their job properly, at times the hate goes overboard and becomes threatening. Here’s look at times when celebs got trolled, received threatening and hateful messages for their on-screen roles.

Sudhanshu Pandey, who initially played the role of a 'male chauvinist' in Anupamaa, was hated for his character, Vanraj. The actor gets trolled for ruining his former wife Anupamaa's life on the show. In an exclusive interview with ETimes TV, Sudhanshu shared that he receives hate mails for playing Vanraj. He said, "I receive a lot of hate mails and messages. But it all depends on how you look at it. It is human to get disturbed by the kind of comments and the trolling that you face. But at the same time, if you look at the kind of attachment the audience has with the character, they deeply get affected by everything that the character does. When Vanraj is behaving in a certain way, they tend to believe that I am actually that person. That is where the trolling comes from. It is disturbing but if this trolling doesn’t happen I get really worried because then it means my character is dying. It is very important to get trolled and it is also very important to make sure that the audience loves you obviously but they should also hate your character to an extent that they start sympathising with other characters because of Vanraj. If there is no hatred towards Vanraj, where is the love? That’s how I look at it.”

Aishwarya Sharma essays the character of Pakhi in Ghum Hai Kiskey Pyaar Meiin. She's often been at the receiving end of hate and trolling on social media because her onscreen character is the villain in Sai (Ayesha Sharma) and Virat's (Neil Bhatt) life. Interestingly, Aishwarya is Neil's wife in real life and she has been vocal about the negative comments she receives. On the show, Smart Jodi, Aishwarya revealed people asked Neil why he was getting married to her. "Yeh kaun hai? Isse shaadi kyun kar rahi ho? Bahut gandi aurat hai yeh, bahut saari gaaliyaan. Tumko toh mar jaana chahiye corona se," said the actress. The couple tied the knot in November 2021.

Actress Simran Budharup, who plays the role of Rishita in the popular family drama, Pandya Store recently revealed to ETimes TV that she has been getting rape and death threats on social media from young users. Speaking on social media trolling, Simran shared, "Initially, I would take all the negative comments lightly because my character was doing things for which she was bound to get disliked. She broke the relationship of Raavi and Dev who were already established characters from Pandya Store, but recently it went haywire when people started abusing and giving rape threats to me on social media. A lot of things were happening. That’s when I took a step and I went to the police station and lodged a complaint. These were a group of kids who were around the 13-14 age group.”

Akanksha Juneja, who played the antagonist Kanak Desai in the show Saath Nibhana Saathiya 2, told BT, “As much as I appreciate the positive feedback, the negative comments have disturbed me a lot. Some comments have even scared me. The audience needs to understand that I’m playing a character like that just on screen; in real life, I’m just the opposite. Recently there were a few ladies with whom I was got into a heated argument as they started scolding me for being so vicious in the show. They say things like ‘You are very rude,’ ‘You don’t have a pretty face,’ ‘You should die,’ and all this used to play on my mind. Even after repeatedly requesting them to stop posting such comments, they don't.”

Aman Maheshwari, who plays the role of Neeraj Bajwa in the series, said people recognised him outside even though he was wearing a mask. They kept questioning him for ruining Ram (Nakuul Mehta) and Priya’s (Disha Parmar) lives in the show. He shared that viewers took his on-screen character so seriously in real life.

Sangita Ghosh, who played a loud and over-the-top evil Pishachini in fantasy show Divya Drishti, was unfazed by the trolls and hate comments. Seeing trolls and negative comments, Sangita shared that as a human it is hurtful but she doesn’t let it impact her personal life.