Beginning Wednesday, the barrage of negativity surrounding actor Ranvir Shorey refuses to slow down. It all started with a light-hearted reel featuring him dancing with his Khosla Ka Ghosla 2 co-stars Anupam Kher, Boman Irani and Parveen Dabas. It unexpectedly went viral, crossing a 100 million views on Instagram.

Ranvir Shorey

An X user reposted it, and added a caption throwing shade at him. The actor hit back with a crude remark, one which attracted the ire of social media immediately. Users accused him of misogyny because the profile carried a woman’s display picture.

“There is no such reply on my timeline. I reply to trolls in the language they speak in, and I will not be apologetic about it. The user you are mentioning is a known toxic and abusive account, whose real gender and age are unknown to me. The kind of language that account uses is more important than if the profile picture is of a girl or boy. If girls can be gutter mouthed, then they should be ready to hear the same kind of replies too,” he tells us when we reach out to him.

The episode spiralled beyond the original exchange, with social media users digging up personal aspects of Shorey’s life and levelling allegations against him. Some went to the extent of saying his marriage with actor Konkona Sen Sharma didn’t work out because of his behaviour.

Another user alleged that they had spotted Ranvir being rude to a movie theatre staff member over a popcorn bucket.

Dismissing them as “simply haters”, Shorey insists he has never initiated such behaviour, “Those are simply haters. This entire incident was triggered by the hate towards just a funny 15 second reel that I made with the KKG team that went hugely viral! I have never misbehaved with anyone unless they have misbehaved with me first. And I am under no moral, ethical or legal obligation to take any abuse or hate lying down. From men or women. I am done with this episode. I would rather think about the next reel.”