Weighing in on the ‘Boycott Bollywood’ trend, a dark phase in the industry when trolls on social media called for the boycott of Bollywood releases, including some big-budget ones, actor Suniel Shetty credited Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath with putting an end to it.

Last year, in January, Shetty urged CM Adityanath to rid the industry of the viral social media trend, which affected the box-office business of some big films.

Speaking exclusively to ANI, the actor said, “I think it was just a phase, a movement that came and went. Lots of things were happening with Bollywood and ‘#Boycott Bollywood’ was a viral trend, a big movement that was causing further damage to what was already happening in our industry at the time. But when I spoke to Yogi-ji, I was honest. The first thing that I told him was, ‘ bhagwan par bhi to ungli uth ti hai, hum to insaan hain (some even point fingers at the Almighty, we are only human). He took it very positively.”

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“Where are all these trolls now? Does the hashtag exist anymore? Just 10 people here and there, putting out #Boycott Bollywood posts on social media doesn’t make any sense anymore. It didn’t even make any sense back in the day when it became a viral trend. I believe it was just a phase that we rode out. We just went through a bad patch,” he added.

Earlier, in January, during a sit-down with the UP chief minister, the ‘Dhadkan’ actor put forward some of the industry’s grievances before him.

Recalling his conversation with the UP CM, Shetty said, “I remember telling him, ‘The ‘#BoycottBollywood’ trend can stop with your help. It was important to convey that we’ve done good work. There can be one rotten search apple but 99 per cent of us don’t indulge in any wrongdoing. We’ve to change this perception. I told him, ‘If you take the lead and also talk to PM, it will make a difference’.”

Now, almost after a year, Shetty said things have changed.

“All I said was that, ‘Sir, you want us to come there (take film shoots to Uttar Pradesh) but at the same time there is this ban that is happening, where do we go? All we need is respect and it was conveyed and received so beautifully. And now things have changed.”

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‘#Boycott Bollywood’ started trending after the demise of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

However, in 2022, netizens reignited the trend before the release of big-budget films such as ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’, ‘Liger’, ‘Brahmastra’, and ‘Raksha Bandhan’. The trend affected the box-office business of some of these films.

Films like ‘Liger’, and ‘Brahmastra’ also faced boycott calls. However, ‘Brahmastra’ defied the boycott calls and did very good business at the box office, emerging as one of the highest-grossing films of 2022.