Mumbai: Bollywood playback singer Neha Kakkar slammed Sony Max and the makers of Kiku Sharda and Gaurav Gera’s short-segment comedy show Dr Pran Lele for a recent episode, which featured a character named “Neha Shakkar.”
On the show, which features Gaurav Gera as a nurse and Kiku Sharda as a doctor, the comedians indirectly cracked jokes about Neha Kakkar’s height by referring to her as a “chhota bluetooth speaker” and “Neha kankar” among other things.
Kiku Sharda can also be heard saying in the video: “Tum kuchh bhi karke crores kama lete ho!”
Soon after the video aired, Neha Kakkar lodged a strongly-worded protest in her Instagram stories, writing: “Shame on these people for creating such negative and insulting content! My people know how much I appreciate comedy on me and otherwise but this one is ridiculous! Stop using my name, stop enjoying, dancing and acting to my songs if you hate me so much.
A day after singer Neha Kakkar and her brother Tony Kakkar called out Sony TV and their comedians Gauarv Gera–Kiku Sharda for performing an insensitive gag on the singer, Gaurav apologised to her.
In his latest statements to a daily, Gaurav Gera, who’s known as Chutki on-screen, mentioned he was extremely guilty for hurting Neha and making fun of her talent because he never intended to do so.
Gaurav was quoted saying, “My idea was not to hurt her. She is fantastic, a rockstar and she doesn’t need me to say it. I didn’t even know about the height part, and I myself don’t have an average height. Kiku is short-heighted. We make fun of each other so much in all the episodes. Meri koi aukat nahi hai to tell her anything… (I am no one to comment on her). I really had no idea that she would be so hurt.”