Pooja Hegde Calls Out Bollywood’s PR Wars: ‘People Spend Lakhs To Bring Others Down’

“Many times, and to me, it was a shock. The one thing I’m really bad at is PR. I remember there was a time when I was constantly getting trolled by meme pages, and I was like, why are they constantly talking negatively about me? It looked targeted. People are spending a lot of money on pulling down other people," the actress told Filmfare.

Pooja admitted that the trolling took a toll on her and her family, making it a tough experience to go through. However, she chose to see it as a backhanded compliment, reasoning that if people were willing to spend money to bring her down, it only meant she was doing something right.

“When I found out about it, my parents and I were very bothered. But I also took it as a compliment because if someone feels the need to pull you down, it means you are above them. I kept reassuring my parents that it was okay. But after a point, it became too much. I found out that people were spending lakhs just to troll me," she mentioned.

Pooja shared that when she asked her team to connect with meme pages to figure out the reason behind the negativity, she was stunned to discover that the trolling was actually a paid effort. “I told my team to connect with the meme pages and ask them what the problem was. And they said, ‘This is how much they are paying us. If you’d like to stop it or troll them back, this is the amount.’ To me, it was just bizarre."

“People believe such things but don’t know why I’m being trolled or what the reason behind it is. Sometimes, I see a horrendous comment, go to the profile, and find that there’s no display picture or any posts. These are just paid bots," she added.

On the work front, Pooja was seen in the recently-released film Deva which starred Shahid Kapoor as well.