Chetan Bhagat Accuses Vidhu Vinod Chopra Of Bullying Him, Tweets, ‘He Drove Me Close To Suicide’

Chetan Bhagat, while replying to Vidhu Vinod Chopra's wife Anupama Chopra's tweet, alleged that the filmmaker tried to deny him credit for his story.

New Delhi: The untimely demise of Sushant Singh Rajput has re-ignited debate on topics like nepotism, favouritism and outsider vs insider in Bollywood. Kangana Ranaut, in an explosive interview, called out the biggies from the film industry. Writer Chetan Bhagat took to Twitter to ask the critics to not ‘write rubbish’ about Sushant’s last film ‘Dil Bechara’, which will premiere directly on Disney+ Hotstar on July 24. “Sushant's last film releases this week. I want to tell the snob and elitist critics right now, write sensibly. Don't act oversmart. Don't write rubbish. Be fair and sensible. Don't try your dirty tricks. You have ruined enough lives. Now stop. We'll be watching,” Bhagat wrote on the micro-blogging site. Chetan Bhagat’s tweet didn’t go down well with journalist and film critic Anupama Chopra. She tweeted, “Each time you think the discourse can’t get lower, it does!"

While replying to Anupama’s tweet, Chetan accused her husband and filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra of bullying and denying him credit for his story in ‘3 Idiots’. He also alleged that Chopra ‘drove him close to suicide’ in his tweet. "Ma'am, when your husband publicly bullied me, shamelessly collected all the best story awards, tried denying me credit for my story and drove me close to suicide, and you just watched, where was your discourse?," Bhagat wrote.

‘3 Idiots’, which featured Aamir Khan, R Madhavan, Sharman Joshi and Kareena Kapoor Khan, was embroiled in controversy after its release. Vidhu Vinod Chopra and film’s director Rajkumar Hirani bought the rights for Bhagat’s ‘Five Point Someone’. The words ‘based on the novel by Chetan Bhagat’ appeared in the closing credits of the movie. Chetan Bhagat had expressed his displeasure at the time and said that he expected his name to feature in the opening credits. Hirani and writer Abhijat Joshi were credited for the story and screenplay and they even bagged awards for the same.