When one thought the Hrithik Roshan-Kangana Ranaut couldn’t get any murkier, one wouldn’t have been more wrong. After Kangana reopened the can of worms, right before the release of her recently released dud ‘Simran,’ people called it a publicity stunt, but she was nevertheless hailed a beacon of feminism and found support from most quarters.
However, after Hrithik Roshan chose to finally break his stoic silence, one that he had maintained throughout the ordeal, Kangana’s staunchest of supporters find themselves in a soup.
Hrithik had taken to his social media feeds to clarify his innocence and the absolute non-existence of any form of relationship beyond a professional one between the two.
The actor, however, took a step further, by appearing on Republic TV and sensationally revealing his take on the infamous episode for the very first time.
“First of all, I am not a victim. I don’t think there is anything in my life that will make me think that way about myself. I know, and I have always known, that whatever I say can and will be used against me and I have to be honest that I am very, very uncomfortable right now,” he said at the beginning of the interview.
“I am not a confrontational person. I have never had a fight in my life – neither with a man nor a girl. Even in my divorce, there was no fight,” he said. “I know that there is absolutely no grace in what I am doing right now. There is no grace in sitting here and testifying for my character and making myself sound right and good and true, and by implication, making someone else seem wrong,” he continued.
“I was also very afraid. I’m afraid that my words would be misconstrued. If I come across as strong they might term me as aggressive, if I show emotion they might term me as weak, if I show that I am vulnerable, they say ‘he’s looking for sympathy,’” Hrithik added.
“If I’m walking down the street and if a person abuses me, the dignified thing to do is to keep walking, but if that person starts throwing stones into my home, and affects the well being of me and my family, then that silence is no longer strength, that silence becomes weakness,” he posited.
“I need to say what I want to say, but I have to keep live up to this star thing of mine. I have to be cool and not give any attention to something that is not important, but after a while I realised I was pretending. It was affecting me, it was affecting my community, it was affecting my sense of well being. That’s not being a hero, that’s being fake,” he said.
When prodded on what made him finally speak up, Hrithik said, “I was advised to stop. I’m usually very stable, but in that state of mind, to come out and talk, was not advisable – not that I am totally comfortable right now – but one has to grow and realise that some things need to be done.”
“I was afraid, and now I am not going to be afraid. I am going to allow my mind and my heart to say what it wants to say. If I hurt somebody’s sentiments, I’d like to apologise right now.”
“I first met her in 2008-2009,” Hrithik began, reiterating he was never ‘friends’ with Kangana, when asked about the leaked emails, adding, “We did not become good friends. I found her to be extremely, extremely professional, not just in Kites, but through Krrish as well, to the extent that I was really, really proud of her. She came with her dialogues, and she was giving everything she had for my movies, and for an actor to give so much to my movies meant a lot. I was extremely proud of her, and I told her that several times. She said that she was inspired by me after seeing me in a film in Manali. I took that as a compliment,” he said.
“There were hundreds of people at those parties, and they were always around some movie,” Hrithik clarified, when asked about the ‘pictures’ doing the rounds, said to be from the time they were ’together’. “You have a celebration, a birthday or whatever, and you’re calling more than a hundred people, and you make sure you include all your team.”
“We were at a wrap party in Jordan, and I was ready to retire for the night, and she wanted to talk, and I was very, very tired, so I told her we should talk in the morning,” he said, speaking on when he realised things had started to get out of hands. “I ordered for room service, and there was a loud knock on my door, so I went to check – this was 2012, and everyone was really happy – and it was her through the keyhole.”
“She didn’t appear to be in the right state. It was a party so you’ve had a few drinks, so I called my assistant, and he came down to her room and asked her sister to come get her. Rangoli (Kangana’s sister) came and told me not to think badly of her, and that she is a good girl,” Hrithik said, “and I said of course, I’m not for a moment judging her.”
A year had passed by and Hrithik had started getting wary. “I don’t judge the behaviour, but I would not do that, my instinct said be nice.”
Though reports of them being together had surfaced in 2013, Hrithik maintained, “I have not met her one on one in my life.” However, the proposal rumours did not pan out too well for the actor. “When I heard that I was relieved, because I thought we this is a lie that can be demolished. Then came the photoshopped pictures. But no one saw the truth,” he said.
“I didn’t give any clarification because it’s disgraceful. Everything I said, would be used against me. Even this interview right now, could be used against me. My friends told me I couldn’t do that. I was a star, and I don’t understand what being a star has anything to do with this,” he added.
When the mails came up for discussion, upon asked why he didn’t block the actress in the first place, Hrithik said, “If you have a MacBook Pro, there is no option to block people. Believe me I hunted for this blocking option. You can only spam it or junk it, and I did that immediately. I must have read 40-50 of them. There were about 3-4000. All this time, the harassment was limited to my laptop, then she made it public. And that is when I got afraid.”
However, the actor had chosen to ignore the mails, rather than responding an end to it. “My higher understanding of life has taught me that ignorance is the best way forward.This is not the first time, I’ve been sent mails of this nature. I’ve learnt in the past that my ignorance discouraged it, and that is what I thought would happen now. I spoke to my friends, I spoke to people in the industry and asked them if they knew a friend of her’s. The affect that my conversation with Rangoli last month had on me, when I heard terms like ‘rape’ I was a mess,” he said.
When asked why a police report had not been filed back then itself, Hrithik revealed, “I didn’t want to name her. I could have replied, I could have made a phone call, I could have sent an SMS saying ‘come over’, but thank God I didn’t,” Hrithik said. “I didn’t want to associate with this at all. I am a creative person. I have kids. I had no interest in this. Until it started manifesting in the outside world. I can handle things in my inbox. I deal with my problems. I can just brush it aside and move on.”
Well, that’s Hrithik’s version of the events in its entirety and people are finding it extremely difficult to decide which side they would want to trust. Something tells us this is episode is nowhere close to closure.
