After criticisms and controversies erupted over an inappropriate tweet, actor Siddharth has issued an apology to badminton player Saina Nehwal, with a long letter posted on his social media handles. The actor had retweeted a post by Nehwal on January 6, in which she had expressed her concern over the security breach of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Punjab visit on January 5.
In an open letter published on Twitter late Tuesday evening, the actor said that even though he may disagree with Nehwal’s views, his tone of the tweet cannot be justified. ‘Dear Saina, I want to apologise to you for my rude joke that i wrote as a response to a tweet of yours, a few days ago. I may disagree with you on many things but even my disappointment or anger when i read your tweet, cannot justify my tone and words. I know I have more grace in me than that’, Siddharth wrote. ‘I, however must insist my word play and humour had none of the malicious intent that so many people from all quarters have attributed to it. I am a staunch feminist ally and i assure you there was no gender implied in my tweet and certainly no intent to attack you as a woman’, he added.
He concluded with the hope that she will accept his letter. ‘I hope we can put this behind us and that you will accept my letter. You will always be my Champion. Honestly, Siddharth’, he signed off.
https://twitter.com/Actor_Siddharth/status/1480962679032324097
Various activists have slammed Siddharth over his comments, calling it ‘sexist, misogynistic’ and demanded that he should apologise to Nehwal. Following the controversy, Siddharth had also responded on Monday that he did not mean to disrespect anyone and his ‘subtle cock’ tweet contained no kind of insinuation. ‘Cock and bull. That’s the reference. Reading otherwise is unfair and leading. Nothing disrespectful was intended, said or insinuated. Period’, he tweeted.
No nation can claim itself to be safe if the security of its own PM gets compromised. I condemn, in the strongest words possible, the cowardly attack on PM Modi by anarchists.#BharatStandsWithModi #PMModi
— Saaina Nehwal (@NSaina) January 5, 2022
Meanwhile, shuttler Saina Nehwal on Wednesday said that she is happy that actor Siddharth has apologized after making some derogatory comments about her. ‘He only said something about me first and then he apologised. I do not even know why it went so viral, I was surprised to see myself trending on Twitter. Happy that Siddharth has apologised, you should not target a woman like that. It is okay, I am not bothered about it, I am happy in my place, god bless him’, Nehwal said after her first-round India Open game.
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