After a brief calm following last year’s ban from several film organisations, actor Shane Nigam has once again found himself embroiled in controversy, this time over a comment he made about fellow actor Unni Mukundan during a recent film promotion.
While promoting his upcoming film Little Hearts, accompanied by co-stars Mahima Nambiar and Baburaj, Shane expressed a preference for the pairing of Mahima and Unni over theirs when asked about on-screen chemistry. While Unni and Mahima appeared together in the recent film Jai Ganesh, Little Hearts marks the second venture for the Shane-Mahima duo after RDX.
The banter, however, continued and Shane proceeded to jest about Unni’s production company, Unni Mukundan Film Production Company Limited (UMFPL), using wordplay. Unfortunately, the term Shane used could also be construed as a derogatory word in Malayalam, sparking controversy and drawing criticism toward the actor from various quarters. The row escalated further as Sangh Parivar sympathisers sided with Unni since the actor has repeatedly expressed his admiration for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, contrasting with Shane’s identity which has earned him the label “Sudapi” — a derogatory term used for followers of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), a political party associated with radical Islamist ideologies.
Now, Shane has issued a public apology to Unni, stating that the remark was intended as a joke and was not meant to cause any harm. At a press conference in Dubai, he revealed that he had personally reached out to Unni to convey his apology and clarify the misunderstanding, Mathrubhumi reported. The RDX actor also maintained that he had lodged a complaint with the police regarding abusive messages directed toward his mother on social media.
Recently, Shane came under fire after he took to his Instagram stories to post a photo of himself donning a keffiyeh, with the caption ‘Sudapi from India,’ to show solidarity with Palestine. However, the caption garnered a lot of attention, with many concluding that he had outed himself.
“I posted the photo in solidarity with Rafah. These days, my Instagram inbox is filled with comments calling me Sudapi. So I thought it would be better to post the comment myself rather than seeing it in the comment box. The ‘Sudapi’ comment was bound to happen in my comment box regardless of what I post. I am not angry or sad. Things only start getting worse when we take comments seriously. I am used to such comments on the internet, but it’s different when it comes to my family. They are shattered by the online attacks I sometimes face. This eventually affects me a little, so I will be very careful about what I say from now on,” he said, as reported by Kaumudi Online.
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