The ‘Suchi Leaks’ Episode Is A Nightmare For Those Involved

The ‘Suchi Leaks’ controversy, as it is being called, has created a stir in Kollywood. The videos, photographs and insinuations doing the rounds have proved to be gossip fodder, with many social media users urging Suchitra (or whoever was operating her Twitter handle) to release more content.

However, for the people involved in the controversy, who have been inundated with abusive messages, memes, hate mail, vulgar phone calls, and rape threats, the situation is anything but amusing.

We seem to have forgotten that celebrities too are human beings with emotions. They have families and friends, who are also dragged into the controversy at hand.  

Chinmayi’s husband Rahul Ravindran has dismissed all allegations against the singer. Speaking to The News Minute, he says that a representative from Suchitra’s camp must reveal the truth as there are lives at stake.

Rahul says, “We’ve both mostly maintained a stoic silence about what has happened. We were aware of what’s going on right from the beginning when these tweets started coming. Chinmayi was the first person to say that we must extend our understanding and not go public about what we’d been told or Suchitra’s life would become a circus... however, nobody expected things to escalate so much.”

Rahul also revealed that many on social media are gullible to take these leaks as being the truth.

Chinmayi, who entered the industry at 15 as a child prodigy, was one of the first to counter the allegations being made from Suchitra’s handle.

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Rahul points out that trying to explain things on social media is both exhausting and pointless.

Most Kollywood celebrities have expressed their exasperation with the controversy. “I don’t even know Suchitra. It’s not like I can call and ask her to stop,’ one of the celebrities said.

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"We'd rather wait till there is official word from someone at Suchitra's end before we say anything more," he says.

Not a New Trend

A few years ago, actress Swarnamalya found herself at the centre of a controversy over her alleged links with Vijayendra Saraswathi, then the junior pontiff at the Kanchi mutt.

Recalling the period, Swarnamalya says: “It’s very easy for people to place character judgments on women. And then, if they’re women in the public eye, if they are women who are artists, it becomes easier. It’s a societal mindset. There’s very little thought people put into this.”

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Swarnamalya points out that no one had stepped up to defend her in 2004, and that things would have been different today.

"There was no social media back then where I could put out my version. I was a 21-year-old caught in a whirlpool of these things," she says.

Swarnamalya admits that the furore over the controversy almost drove her to suicide. She reveals that her family too, went through a difficult time.

When asked about the nude MMS scandal she was linked to a few years ago, Swarnamalya says she seldom responds when people ask her if she was in the MMS. “Doing so gives the people asking these questions a sense of power over you,” she says.

Swarnamalya admits that the controversies have made her strong. “People are very scared of strength. The fact that you are strong at the face of adversity scares and frustrates people. And I think I have mastered it,” she says.

But not everyone grows into resilience, not everyone is equally strong. And that is something we will all do well to remember when we're indulging in vicarious gossip.

(The article was originally published at The News Minute.)