Male actors and directors are known to have fragile egos and if you happen to rub them the wrong way, then you had it. And this time, actor Dhansika of Kabali fame was at the receiving end. She was insulted on stage during a press meet of their upcoming film Vizhithiru by T Rajendar for failing to mention him while she acknowledged the rest of the team. And he didn’t stop at that, he hit a different tangent, where he slut shamed her for her attire. It began with the actress thanking all her co-stars leaving behind T Rajendar, who took it personally. He pointed out that even though she has acted alongside Rajinikanth, she shouldn’t forget that Vizhithiru happened before that.

Though Dhansika wanted to mend the situation with an apology, but it clearly didn’t work. Although fans have condemned such behaviour openly, PR strategists aren’t reading much into it. Some have rubbished it as just another act.

“Good publicity is good. Bad publicity is better. Ugly publicity is the best… because it travels the fastest and hits the hardest. The worst of all is no publicity,” justifies Bollywood PR guru Dale Bhagwagar.
He points out, “The key to a sensational story is not who, or what, or when, but why. And T Rajendar, by his own admission, blasted Dhansika for the sake of publicizing Vizhithiru. There is no news like bad news.”

Agreeing with Dale, Sayoni Das, a Blogger who follows entertainment news closely says, “These days people are devising news ways to hit the headlines. Earlier, we used to see people hooking up with each other to promote the film, now that’s an old strategy which doesn’t work anymore. This is perhaps the new way of promoting one’s film.” Photographer and entertainment Journalist Prakhar Pandey says, “In his candid style he went on to say ‘you are not wearing a sari, so don’t want your sorry’. He also spoke about Hansika, who is Silambarasan’s rumoured ex-girlfriend. So, if you notice carefully, he tried to touch upon everything controversial, and one can see the design behind it all.”

Twitter is ablaze with tweets criticising the Actor/Director who made Dhansika cry.”If it isn’t by design, we condemn such on stage behaviour. Patriarchy is a reality. Some men don’t think twice before abusing a woman,” concludes Deepika B, a fan of the actor.