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Deepika Padukone & Sridevi: PR Smear Targets of SS Rajamouli, Sandeep Reddy Vanga

PUBLISHED DATE : 28/May/2025

Deepika Padukone & Sridevi: PR Smear Targets of SS Rajamouli, Sandeep Reddy Vanga

SS Rajamouli is known to the world as the director of RRR, a movie that gave the globally famous Oscar winning song Naatu Naatu, but even at the peak of his career in 2017, the filmmaker was busy indulging in petty smear campaigns against a veteran Bollywood actress. 

 

SS Rajamouli's claim to PAN Indian fame is a Prabhas-lead multi-starrer movie titled Baahubali: The Beginning (2015). In 2017, post the release of this movie's sequel titled Baahubali: The Conclusion (2017), a filmmaker of his stature was witnessed sitting with a regional interview channel degrading the then-alive Sridevi, for rejecting a role in his Baahubali movies. 

 

In May 2017, when the Rs. 1,810 Cr. Baahubali 2 was still running in theaters, Rajamouli smeared Sridevi by stating,  "After hearing series of wishes from her (Sridevi), our team got fed up. We also thought that it would be above our budget to meet her demands. Then we approached Ramya Krishnan and she proved herself fantastic and we now feel, we were lucky that we dropped the idea of having Sridevi in our film."

 

The Baahubali movies were made over a period of 5 years between 2013-2017, and Sridevi was gearing up for the release of what would turn out be her last film, Mom in 2017. Understandably, the veteran actress who was considered the flag-bearer of South in the Hindi film industry, was shocked as to why her saying no to a project was being revived, post the wide success of an epic franchise. 

 

Sridevi had responded at that time, "I was shocked and hurt by his interview. Rajamouli is a calm and dignified person. I was very happy to work with him. But, the way he spoke about the issue made me feel very sad. People would have sent me packing if I was (demanding) like that. I don't know if the producer wrongly told Rajamouli that I made all these demands, but it is not in good taste to speak like this."

 

Baahubali producers Shobu Yarlagadda and Prasad Devineni of Arka Media Works never provided an explanation to this smear campaign, and SS Rajamouli expressed regret "over sharing internal details" but doubled down on his stance by stating, "As for whose version to believe, I guess it is for people to decide. But one thing is for sure. I shouldn't have discussed the details on a public platform. That's a mistake. And I regret it,"

 

Sridevi passed away less than a year later in 2018. Telugu film articles to this day claim that the actress demanded Rs. 6 Cr. for the Baahubali movies, whereas Ramya Krishnan who eventually went on to do the role Sridevi was offered, was only paid Rs. 2.5 Cr. This is sort of a statement that if one as an artiste, demands a remuneration fit to their caliber, or rejects a project in the Telugu film industry, a PR campaign will surely follow to smear on your brand, and your years of hard-built legacy.

 

It wouldn't matter if this whole PR strategy took away from the work of the woman artiste, who ended up doing the job, in this case Ramya Krishnan, who was perfection as 'Rajamata Sivagami Devi' in the Baahubali films. Unlike SS Rajamouli, Telugu filmmaker Sandeep Reddy Vanga isn't that well known with the family audience in India. 

 

Sandeep Reddy Vanga's claim to fame is creating shock value using obscenity and gore, glorifying violence, and projecting misogyny and disrespect as 'romance' in his movies. Sandeep Reddy Vanga is currently teaming up with the same Baahubali star Prabhas, in an upcoming Telugu project titled Spirit. 

 

Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone who made her Telugu debut with the Prabhas starrer Kalki 2898 AD (2024), was in talks to be cast as Spirit's female lead, despite giving birth just 8 months ago. However the negotiations fell out and Tripti Dimri, who played a problematic role in Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Animal (2023) was announced as Spirit's heroine. 

 

But just like SS Rajamouli and Baahubali producers Arka Media Works, team Spirit - producers Bhushan Kumar of T-series, Pranay Reddy Vanga, and writer, director Sandeep Reddy Vanga employed the services of everyone they could in the Telugu and Hindi film industry, in a full-blown PR smear-campaign against Deepika Padukone. 

 

For three days since Tripti Dimri's cast announcement, articles and tweets have flooded calling Deepika Padukone "unprofessional" for a "high" remuneration ask, flexible work-timings because of her motherhood, and have accused the actress of not willing to speak in Telugu (Deepika Padukone's role in Kalki 2898 AD was dubbed by actress Sobhita Dhulipala, so this was an easy fire to start). 

 

This PR-playbook was not very different from SS Rajamouli's claims that Sridevi in addition to asking for a high remuneration, had demanded an entire hotel floor to herself. Unlike the Telugu filmmakers though, actresses from South India who make a name for themselves in cut-throat Bollywood, are smear-campaign-hardened. 

 

Deepika Padukone in particular is no newbie to targetted take-downs (at one point in India, a whole Hindu political outfit had placed a bounty on her nose in full National TV view). So her side's response to all the PR maligning was clarifying why she had said no to Spirit. This revealed that Spirit was an A-rated movie, as with all of Sandeep Reddy Vanga's work. 

 

A statement from the reporter, whose article first presented Deepika's reason for rejecting Spirit reads,


"To clarify - I simply reported that ‘Spirit’ is rated ‘A’, the female lead is well-written, and #TriptiiDimri is now on board after #DeepikaPadukone stepped away. Simple facts, in two different articles. I didn’t reveal the plot, didn’t disrespect the film, didn’t question the casting change, didn't pass any judgement, and definitely didn't demean any actor in any way.

 

To set the record straight, the information was not fed to me by any actor, or PR agency. I take complete accountability - whether the news turns out to be true or false. I reported the news, based on my intel, just as I do with all other news breaks. I would hate for my newsbreak to be misunderstood and have repercussions on anyone, let alone an actor who had nothing to do with the article to begin with.

 

As for me, I’ll be there FDFS for #Spirit — just like I was for #KabirSingh and #Animal. PS: The derivatives from the article picked up by other media portals, & social media handles are not what I have written - It's their own interpretation." 

 

The reporter was forced to make this tweet because Sandeep Reddy Vanga in his typical meltdown fashion had put Deepika Padukone on blast via his official X handle. This was blindly backed by big Twitter accounts running movie portals in the Telugu, and Hindi film industries (some examples below). 

 

 

Added to this fans of actor Prabhas, who incidentally has been a common denominator in both the Sridevi and Deepika Padukone smear campaigns, have come out in full troll-force.


 

Deepika Padukone meanwhile has maintained silence herself, posting only images of her from the Cartier event in Stockholm, since this controversy. However her loyal fan-base allude this following statement as her subtle response, to the Spirit PR debacle.


 

A tweet best sums up what Sandeep Reddy Vanga and team Spirit did to Deepika Padukone, using cheap publicity tactics:


 

But seemingly they didn't get enough of a response from Padukone herself, as SS Rajamouli did with Sridevi, so started crying foul on their own.


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