CNN-IBN executive editor Bhupendra Chaubey is getting famous on the internet, but for all the wrong reasons.
Following his interview with porn star turned Bollywood actor Sunny Leone, a 20 minute clip surfaced a few days ago, which was enough to create outrage.
The interview which has been labeled misogynistic and regressive, saw Chaubey almost avoid questions on the actor's latest film for which she had agreed to the interview, and completely dwelt on her pornographic past.
The internet was quick to react with websites running headlines like "This Jerk Invited Sunny Leone To His Show Only To Judge & Insult Her" to "13 Kranti Things Sunny Leone Said to Vaanthi Uncle".
Scoopwhoop wrote that "they would've walked out, or maybe even slapped Chaubey for his clearly misogynistic and regressive questions" and added:
If you thought that those couple of minutes were cringeworthy, the entire interview is worse, a hundred times worse. Bhupendra Chaubey clearly gave insulting and humiliating Sunny his best shot with his unbelievably sexist questions, that belonged more to the 19th century than the 21st.
The Ladies Finger reported that:
The number of times Uncle said “your past” amounted to the best drinking game. If I had done a shot every time Uncle said, “your past”, I’d have been blitzed by halfway mark of the 20 minutes this interview lasted. Uncle also hid all his attacks behind phrases like “people say”, and so-and-so has said. Sunny Leone held her ground though. And how!
The story has even gone international with Quartz reporting it with the headline 'An Indian male journalist couldn’t handle a leading Bollywood actor’s pornographic past'.
However, Chaubey has since responded to the criticism on his blog, but only seemed to make things worse.
The defense had sentences like "The only reason why Sunny Leone, or Karanjit as she used to be called earlier, would have qualified to be on my show, is because its her past now evolving into her present which is the story waiting to be told" and "We aren’t really going to the cinemas to watch her because she is a star. And I might just add here that I haven’t seen any of her Bollywood films. Because I have kids at my place, so I cant watch any of her films in her earlier avatar even if I wanted to."
He also went on to add:
I simply did the job of asking questions, yes which were perhaps moral in nature. But isn’t that also the story? I did mention this multiple times in course of the interview that Indians were a bunch of hyper hypocritical people. I am not writing this blog to respond to the critics. But I thought its important to place the facts correctly. In the right context
However, he did praise Leone for standing her ground.
You can watch the interview here.