Kangana-Reporter Spat: Here’s Everything You Want to Know

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Rishika Gupta
4 min read
Kangana-Reporter Spat: Here’s Everything You Want to Know

Since the day poster, teaser and trailer released, the movie ‘Judgementall Hai Kya’ is in controversies. First for its name and now the spat occurred between Kangana and journalist Justin Rao on the song launch event.

In the presence of Rajkummar Rao & Ekta Kapoor, Kangana got into an argument with two journalists. They also had a tiff with her over her last movie Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi.

Kangana asked,

“Have I made a mistake by making a film?”

She added,

“You are calling me a jingoistic person for making a film on nationalism.”

The journalist kept on denying such allegations and defending himself. As a fact, Kangana said that they spent three hours together and also had lunch with her in her van but right after he went away, his perception about her changed. Further, for messaging her, she called out the same journalist. But, the journalist kept saying till the very end that it was all a lie and he never did so.

Here is the video from the day argument happened:

However, things got more critical as people at the launch event got into an argument with the host of the show. A lot of yelling, bashing, and shouting took place. Kangana also asked to deal with the situation in a candid way and stay calm. She said she declines to answer the questions which will later represent her in a negative picture and are twisted into a controversy.

First, the movie was titled as Mental Hai Kya! But now it recently got its title changed as “Judgementall Hai Kya.”

After the spat on Tuesday 9 July, the Entertainment Journalists’ Guild of India (EJGI) wrote an open letter addressed to Balaji Motion’s producer Ekta Kapoor, asking her to condemn an incident on Monday where actor Kangana Ranaut lashed out at a journalist at a promotional event for their film Judgmentall Hai Kya. The letter also declares that the guild has chosen to boycott Kangana.

The letter begins as-

“After the song launch, in a media interaction Ms. Kangana Ranaut, who had accompanied you and Mr. Rajkummar Rao on stage, suddenly snapped at our fellow journalist, Mr Justin Rao of Press Trust of India (PTI), before he could even complete his question. This behaviour was uncalled-for.”

It added,

“We, as a guild, have collectively decided to boycott Ms Ranaut and not give her any media coverage. Rest assured, we will not let this matter affect ‘Judgementall Hai Kya’ in any manner and will be supportive of your film and other cast members, barring Ms Ranaut.”

Further, Rangoli Chandel, Kangana’s sister, tweeted that the actor won’t apologize. She wrote,

“Ek baat ka main vaada karti hoon, Kangana se apology toh nahin milegi, in bikau, nange, deshdrohi, desh ke dalal, libtard mediawalon ko, magar woh tumko dho dho kar sidha zaroor karegi ... just wait and watch, tumne galat insaan se maafi mangi hai ... 🙏”

After all of this happened, Ekta Kapoor wrote an apology to media partners. The statement reads,

“A lot is being reported about the debate that ensued between our film JudgeMentall Hai Kya's actor and journalist Justin Rao, at the film's song launch event on July 7th, 2019. Unfortunately, the event took an unpleasant turn.
While the people involved in it fairly held their own perspectives but because it happened at the event of our film, we, as the producers, would like to apologize and express regret for this untoward incident.
We would like to maintain that our intention was not to disrespect or hurt anyone's sentiments.
Our film JudgeMentall Hai Kya releases on July 26th and we urge the media to not let this one incident hamper the team effort that has gone behind making the film.”

Meanwhile, Kangana Ranaut shared a video with a caption,

“#KanganaRanaut
would like your attention. This is important. Listen up!”
View this post on Instagram

would like your attention. This is important. Listen up!

A post shared by Kangana Ranaut (@team_kangana_ranaut) on

But the spat didn’t end here as media responded to Ekta Kapoor’s apology. They wrote that The Entertainment Journalists' Guild of India has now accepted the apology by Balaji Motion Pictures but has said that they will continue the ban on Kangana Ranaut.

Their statement read,

"The Entertainment Journalists Guild appreciates Ms Ekta Kapoor's support and standing for what is right through her official statement. However, we will continue the ban on Ms Kangana Ranaut across all media platforms."

But after later all this, questions raised on the credibility of Entertainment Journalists Guild as its logo found to be from a free image library.

Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, a Spokesperson, wrote,

“Wow just Noticed Entertainment @GuildJournalist Logo is Cropped & Stolen from this website 😳😳😳 ye to Chindigiri ki bhi hadd ho gai ?”

You can see below that the second image is the logo of an organization named “whysodigital,” and the first image is the display image of the EJG’s Twitter handle. It becomes clear on comparing both the images, EJG has used the bottom part of the whysodigital’s logo, which has been combined with the letters EJG to create the logo of the Guild.

Well, it is still not certain how it’s going to end. So, stay tuned for more news on the issue!