Mumbai: Exposing the dark side of the entertainment industry, actress Pooja Hegde, in a recent interview, revealed that she was a victim of target trolling, and meme pages were paid in lakhs to share negative posts on her.
While talking about negative PR strategies and target trolling, Pooja told Filmfare, “Many times, and to me, it was a shock. The one thing I’m really bad at is PR. I remember there was a time when I was constantly getting trolled by meme pages, and I was like, why are they constantly talking negatively about me? It looked targeted. People are spending a lot of money on pulling down other people. When I found out about it, my parents and I were very bothered. But I also took it as a compliment because if someone feels the need to pull you down, it means you are above them. I kept reassuring my parents that it was okay. But after a point, it became too much. I found out that people were spending lakhs just to troll me.”
When the actress asked her team to investigate the source of the negativity, she was shocked to find that people were being paid to pull her down.
She added, “I told my team to connect with the meme pages and ask them what the problem was. And they said, ‘This is how much they are paying us. If you’d like to stop it or troll them back, this is the amount.’ To me, it was just bizarre. People believe such things but don’t know why I’m being trolled or what the reason behind it is. Sometimes, I see a horrendous comment, go to the profile, and find that there’s no display picture or any posts. These are just paid bots.”
Pooja was last seen in ‘Deva’ with Shahid Kapoor. The film underperformed at the box office and failed to impress audiences.
She will be next seen with Varun Dhawan in ‘Hai Jawani Toh Ishq Hona Hai.’