The Rishabh Pant-Urvashi Rautela story, and her endless controversies

Actress and model Urvashi Rautela and cricketer Rishabh Pant were rumoured love birds back in 2018 but now they brew a social media feud. After Rautela referred to a certain ‘Mr RP’ in a recent interview, Pant shared a series of cryptic Instagram posts to give his own take on the controversy. 

The interview that started the controversy: The storm was brewed first when Rautela gave an interview to Bollywood Hungama’s Faridoon Shahryar. Responding to questions about attention from the paparazzi and rejecting proposals, she mentioned an incident with a ‘Mr RP’. 

Rautela's story goes that after a jam packed day of shooting in Delhi, she came back to her hotel room and slept off. Meanwhile, Mr RP was waiting in the lobby to meet her and spent 10 to 12 hours there. To quote Rautela herself, “When I woke up I saw 16-17 missed calls and then I felt so bad that someone was waiting for me and I told him to meet me in Mumbai.”.

Rautela then says when the two finally met in Mumbai, they were surrounded by ‘paps’ and it became ‘big news’. It is uncertain what big news the actress is actually talking about. When the journalist smilingly asked her who this Mr RP is, Rautela shushed him down saying that she wouldn’t reveal his identity. 

Rishabh Pant gets irritated on Instagram: The internet was quick to decipher that the RP in question might be Rishabh Pant, who was rumoured to have been romantically linked with the actress for a short period in 2018. 

Pant was quick to hit back with a (now-deleted) Instagram story that read, 

Urvashi Rautela calls Pant ‘Chotu Bhaiyaa’: Around the time of Raksha Bandhan this year, Rautela decided to respond to Pant’s Insta story with an equally sarcastic (now-deleted) Insta post in which she referred to Pant as ‘Chotu Bhaiyaa' who should play bat and ball’ and herself as a ‘munni’ who wouldn’t let herself be ‘badnaam’. 

For unknown reasons, the post’s caption also included bizarre hashtags like ‘Cougar Hunter’ and ‘don’t take advantage of a silent girl’. 

Rautela is no stranger to controversy: Indian netizens have had field days passing comments and making memes on this seemingly petty feud. It is not surprising that Rautela has been in the mix as the actress’s flop films and over-the-top persona on social media has made her the subject of many a meme earlier. 

The IITian who copies captions: Just take for instance, the time when she copied Euphoria and Spider-Man star Zendaya’s Instagram caption for her own post! 

And here is a person who proudly claimed to be an ‘IIT-ian’ in her Insta bio. Spoiler alert: she did not go to IIT! And yet how she claims to be an IIT-ian, that is an unsolvable mystery. 

That awkward Logan Paul interview: In 2020, right when the pandemic started started, several celebrities held Instagram live sessions to pass time. And then due to some unforeseen celestial interference, the two social media ‘legends’ Urvashi Rautela and Logan Paul joined forces!

Snippets of the interaction are still on YouTube and they can show you the sheer level of awkwardness between the two. It mostly involves Rautela interviewing Paul and then the two engage in a conversation where both of them are talking about totally unrelated things. 

Thankfully, Rautela’s cringe factor was lessened in comparison to Paul who said some truly amusing things like, “I can speak a little Indian.". 

Copying Gigi Hadid’s caption this time: If copying Zendaya’s Instagram caption wasn’t enough, Urvashi Rautela’s next ‘unannotated source’ was Gigi Hadid. 

In an emotional post addressing unwanted paparazzi attention, Hadid penned a two-paragraph-long caption. Sharing a post on her ‘publicity gimmicks’ (by a media portal), the actress used the same caption verbatim! Unfortunately, Rautela got trolled even further. And when people began pointing this out in the comments section, the actress even started deleting the comments. 

Paying Viral Bhayani to sing her praises: Popular Bollywood paparazzo and content creator Viral Bhayani posts all the latest B-town scoop on his Instagram. So, when his Insta was covering the time Harnaaz Sandhu won the Miss Universe pageant in 2021, Urvashi Rautela's stint as a judge for that competition was also highlighted. The caption reads, ''Judges Miss Universe & India wins the crown. Urvashi Rautela turns out to be the lucky charm for India.". 

The Internet was quickly abuzz with reactions to the post with many saying how Rautela paid Bhayani to get this post and caption up, this being yet another display of the actress' narcissism. 

Rautela represents a new generation of social media actresses: So far, none of Rautela’s movies have made a mark. Her filmography includes massively-trolled productions such as Great Grand Masti, Sanam Re, and more recently, her Tamil debut The Legend (which is easily one of the best worst films ever made). 

And yet, she amasses a notable Instagram following of 53.9 million followers. While we might be trolling her like it’s our job, she’s the one who gets to attend Cannes or chills out at a Drake concert. 

Maybe, Rautela does represent a new generation of stars who might be the butt of every joke but they manage to get enough publicity thanks to their social media antics. It is only a matter of time that she becomes a Bigg Boss contestant in the future!