A video is going viral online showing Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone talking about the problem of pay disparity in the Bollywood industry.
Social media users are sharing this video and claiming that this was her recent reaction after exiting Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Spirit.
The movie now stars Prabhas and Triptii Dimri in lead roles.
How did we find out the truth?: We performed a relevant keyword search to look for recent reports about Padukone's response but did not find any.
We then performed a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the viral video which led us to a video report shared by NDTV on 18 January 2019.
The clip matched with the viral clip and the description stated that Padukone recalled the time she had to turn down a film because the filmmaker said he could not afford to pay her much since he had to accommodate the male actor.
We also found report shared by Hindustan Times and Times of India from 2019 which stated that Padukone remarked about gender pay-gap in Bollywood at the cover launch of the book titled, 'The Dot That Went for a Walk'.
“There was a recent incident where a director offered us a film that creatively I liked. But then it came to talking about money, and I said that this is what I would charge. Then it kind of went back and forth. He came back and told me that he wouldn’t be able to afford me as he had to accommodate the male (lead). So, then I said ‘tata- good bye’ as I know my track record. I know my worth. I know that his films haven’t been doing as well as my films have. So, it made absolutely no sense. I was okay to say no to that film based on pay because I thought it was unfair,” she said.
This proves that the video is old and unrelated to Vanga and his movie, Spirit.
Conclusion: An old video of Deepika Padukone talking about pay disparity is being falsely linked to her exiting the film, Spirit.
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