Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi, who recently made headlines for playing the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the eponymous film, was in the news on Monday for doing something rather tasteless. Amidst the hullabaloo about the exit polls of the 2019 general elections predicting the comfortable return of the BJP and PM Modi, a meme doing the rounds pointed out how these polls could be far from the results.
Sounds harmless, right? Except it wasn’t. The meme in question chose to take a dig at Bollywood actor Aishwarya Rai’s personal life. The former Miss World had dated Salman Khan as well as Vivek Oberoi, and is now married to Abhishek Bachchan with whom she has a daughter. The meme showed a photo of her with Salman to denote opinion polls, one with Vivek to signify exit polls, and a picture with Abhishek and their daughter Aaradhya to show “Result”.
As tasteless as the meme was, Vivek Oberoi went one step ahead – he reposted it on his Twitter timeline, legitimising it, calling it creative and saying, “No politics here… just life”. This just goes on to show that no matter how powerful and privileged some men get, their thinking remains petty. They do not seem to understand the concept of moving on respectfully, and will take the opportunity to publicly shame the woman who left them years ago. Real mature.
FYI - Vivek himself is married with two children. But of course, that did not stop him from taking a completely unnecessary and disrespectful jibe at Aishwarya’s personal life. Aishwarya is currently wowing people at the Cannes film festival, and Vivek… well, he is reposting tasteless memes.
Rekha Sharma, National Commission for Women Chairperson called out Vivek and said that NCW will be serving him a notice.
This tweet is absolutely Disgusting, distasteful, and degrading a women. @NCWIndia will be serving notice to @vivekoberoi https://t.co/Np0APTMzIZ
— rekha sharma (@sharmarekha) May 20, 2019
The internet was quick to slam him too, with people calling him out for being creepy, and pointing out that his tweet was in bad taste.
Distasteful. Move on Mr. Oberoi https://t.co/BbLskLUoLh
— Nidhi Razdan (@Nidhi) May 20, 2019
Disgusting and classless. https://t.co/GUB7K6dAY8
— Sonam K Ahuja (@sonamakapoor) May 20, 2019
— meghnad (@Memeghnad) May 20, 2019
That's quite in bad taste... Show some respect for women !
— Kamlesh Sutar (@kamleshsutar) May 20, 2019
Dude wtf is wrong with you?
— Ishita Yadav (@IshitaYadav) May 20, 2019
This is in such poor taste.. ones personal life is not to be discussed here.. remember there are 4 individuals who are father/ mother/ brother /sister .. and everyone has moved on .. shame
— Sushant Kumar (@sushantksay) May 20, 2019
You are a creep, @vivekoberoi https://t.co/PNAMycWHUs
— Pooja Prasanna (@PoojaPrasanna4) May 20, 2019
Very cheap @vivekoberoi !! This ain’t a joke. Let someone show this to your wife. I always had sympathies for you but after seeing this post, all I have to say is that Aishwarya made a sensible decision and learn something from @BeingSalmanKhan on how to behave! @juniorbachchan https://t.co/MzclKGgEC4
— Sadhavi Khosla (@sadhavi) May 20, 2019
What a shame @vivekoberoi ur a father too. Imagine if someone some day does exactly the same thing to ur daugther how will u feel rather than been a good human being and condemning it u are praising the person.. This is sick.
— RiA (@RiaRevealed) May 20, 2019
Didn't expect u of all too stoop so low. https://t.co/iHliWBKmiG