Vivek Oberoi on Bollywood groupism: Have been a victim of that myself; paid a price due to lack of support

The age-old debate on nepotism and groupism has reinvigorated after the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput on June 14, 2020. The debate has exploded on social media over the last few months and a lot of television and Hindi film actors have been talking about it and how Bollywood functions. Several celebrities have also spoken about the dark side of showbiz.

Vivek Oberoi also joined the bandwagon. The actor in an interview talked about how he was targetted by a group in Bollywood and he lost several projects due to groupism. Talking to Hindustan Times, Vivek said, "There always has been lobby, people abusing their power. I have been a victim of that myself. You know there is always been a lobby that has a massive influence and power and they have used it to enrich and benefit themselves and rather than create an ecosystem and a democratic place where new talent just blossoms."

Sharing his own experience, the 44-year-old actor said, "I have experienced it. I have seen the time from being offered all these choices from people saying to ‘Sorry man I can’t work with you anymore because XYZ asked us not to or that we have this pressure and that pressure. I have seen it firsthand how people abuse their power. I did very early and I tried to stand up against this and I didn’t get any support back then. I did stand up against the system and said this is unfair and not cool. But it was ahead of its time and I didn’t get any support at that time and I paid the price for it."

Calling the experiences that he has had as plain bullying, the actor explains, “Post that I decided that the best way to live my life was to insulate myself from all this. I decided that I don’t want to be a part of this circus and I just want to be a part of making good films".

Also Read: Bobby Deol: If Nepotism Was At Play Here, I Should Never Have Been Out Of Work

Just like Vivek, several celebrities have revealed how their career got affected due to nepotism and groupism. Recently, Angrezi Medium actress Radhika Madan had opened up on how she faced the brunt of it quite early in her career. Madan said, "We outsiders don't have the luxury of choice. When I started out, it wasn't like a line of scripts were lying with me and I could choose the best or zero in on the director or banner to debut with. Tab yeh tha ki jo ho raha hai aur achha lag raha hai, mujhe mil jaye bus. It's not as easy as an outsider. If I start talking about rejections this conversation might go on. I did lose the project to a star kid but then my audition also didn't go well. But when you're told you're a good actor but not pretty enough at the age of 20, it shakes your confidence".

Before this, Mrunal Thakur had explained how she faced the brunt of nepotism. She recalled two events - both at award shows where she was snubbed for being an outsider. 

A few days back, actress Urmila Matondkar narrated how nepotism had almost destroyed her career. Talking about it, the Satya actress said, "This word called 'nepotism', if I start talking about it, I will have to talk for quite a few hours. The amount of it that I have faced, in spite of being from Mumbai, was quite alarming, to say the least. There were some 16-17 new girls who were introduced that year and out of them, some eight or nine of them were somebody or the other's daughters. I will tell you a few of them - Raveena Tandon, Karisma Kapoor, Pooja Bhatt, Kajol, lots of them."

She added, "After my first film, I made a decent name for myself as a good dancer and a decent actor, and yet, I struggled tremendously. By the time I was doing Rangeela, I was written off like no other actor in the history of cinema. 'She makes faces', 'her language'... everything."

Also Read: Sutapa Sikdar On Nepotism: Irrfan Khan Didn't Get Cover Page For Many Years, He Didn't Got Depressed

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