Bollywood actor Ashish Vidyarthi recently participated in Karan Johar’s reality show The Traitors, which featured 20 other celebrities from different fields. During the show, Apoorva Mukhija, also known as Rebel Kid, addressed the veteran actor by his first name, sparking criticism from co-contestant Sudhanshu Pandey. In an interview with Siddharth Kannan, Ashish has now reacted to the matter.
Ashish Vidyarthi says Apoorva Mukhija apologised to him for her remarks on The Traitors
Ashish revealed that he met Apoorva for the first time on The Traitors set and described it as a completely new experience. The encounter made him realise that he had been somewhat detached from a younger generation and its perspectives. Speaking about the controversy, he shared that Apoorva had messaged him to apologise, saying, “Her style is like that, you know. The way she talks, her existence, her persona… it’s all like that. She does her thing, and I do mine; that’s fine. Frankly, when Sudhanshu came, I found out what he said, and within a day, she sent me a WhatsApp message. She said, ‘Sir, I want to apologise.’ I called her up and said, ‘Apoorva, I spoke to you there too, and I think you’re a wonderful human being, it’s all good.'”
Ashish added, “Apoorva has come out of an amazing journey, and there’s a lot of dignity in her. She loves her family and does a lot for them. That’s why I told her to choose her path; those people might try to force her into a certain persona, but she should choose her own path. I was very happy with our conversation. In fact, she said she’d like to have lunch with me one day, and I said, ‘Absolutely.’ Now that I think about it, if I’m in town and she has time, we’ll definitely do it. I have no hard feelings at all.”
Meanwhile, Anupamaa-fame actor Sudhanshu Pandey criticised Apoorva in one of his Instagram live sessions, saying, “Ashish bhai — Ashish Vidyarthi — who is such a senior actor — he’s very senior to me as well. So, behind my back, she was talking about Ashish bhai, and was saying, ‘Mujhe lagta hai Ashish jayega.’ (I feel Ashish will go).”
He further added, “Is he your childhood friend or what? Is he your childhood friend? What kind of way is this to talk about people — about actors who are older than even your parents? You’re talking about them like this behind their back? What does this say about you? Please tell me — is this Gen Z? Is this what we think is cool? No, I’m sorry — this is not cool at all. I think this is the biggest bullsh*t, and it’s like a curse on our society.”
About The Traitors
Hosted by Karan Johar, the show featured 20 celebrities divided into two groups — Innocents and Traitors. Through missions and nightly eliminations, the Innocents aimed to eject all the Traitors; if successful, the prize money was split. If even one Traitor survived, they claimed the entire sum. The first season was won by Uorfi Javed and Nikita Luther, who played as Innocents. The second season has already been announced.