Seemingly, ‘Devadas’ star
Nani’s life has taken a turn, for better or worse, ever since he decided to host the second season of ‘
Bigg Boss’ Telugu.
The actor, who’s a constant target of fans of contestant
Kaushal Manda, aka the infamous
Kaushal Army
, seems to be bearing the brunt of it during film promotions too. Even while his posts speak of his upcoming film with
Nagarjuna
,
Rashmika Mandanna and
Aakanksha Singh, the comments under the posts from Kaushal fans still talk of nothing but ‘Bigg Boss’.
Recently, when the trailer of ‘Devadas’ was released, Nani took a humorous jibe at Kaushal Army and wrote, “Looking at the Big boss reactions and replies for every post of mine about #DevDas, My Director decided to start the trailer this way. #DevaDasOnSept27th. Hope u all have fun along with me and @iamnagarjuna sir. Mee Nani. #DevDas Trailer is here.” (sic) The trailer begins with a classic sad song and the Army did not react to it well.
While as usual, they commented about the unfair treatment they believe Nani is meting out to their favourite contestant, they have also begun threatening to boycott his upcoming film. The threat supposedly comes from even those who were previously Nani’s fans and have never missed his films earlier. “Okapudu 20$ petti first day first show chusevallamandi , Ipudu trailer chustene virakti vastundi , ela chudali mimmalni 3 hrs , inka life lo mee movie chudamemo , adi maa game plan emo #Kaushalarmy,” (sic) comments a fan from Virginia, USA.
When the social media handle of
Suresh Productions
wrote, “Super sir @NameisNani garu. Can't wait!!” (sic) a fan responded with, “Suresh productions , stop praising and bragging about Nani, we will boycott your movies too...” (sic) Numerous comments by Kaushal fans proclaim things like, “Trailer bagundi... Kaushal ni torture pettav kabatti movie chudatledu... 1st tym. ne movie chudakapovadam... #KaushalArmy” (sic) and “Saturday ekkadunna mi show mis kakunda chustam miru ento chupinchandi sir ..kaushal anna ni happy cheyandi..anna kallalo santhosam chusi kotladi mandi prajalu santhosa padataru nani garu ...mee audience” (sic) One fan even threatens to illegally watch a pirated version of the film, “After watching #DevDas trailor I am waiting for #DevaDas HD print In movierulz to support boycott on #nani's #DevaDas. Sorry #Nagarjuna garu & pls respect my irritation towards #nani.” (sic)
Nani’s staunchest fans however offer their support to the star, assuring them they will be watching his film. Nagarjuna on the other hand remains blissfully ignorant of the storm brewing on Nani’s social media, “I don’t know what you are talking about @NameisNani ... all I know is its going to be a festival of fun from September 27
th. enjoy our theatrical trailer #DevaDas” (sic) However, Kaushal’s fans are having none of it and commented under his post too, “Trying for sympathy nag sir sorry this time we can’t watch your movie bcz of @NameisNani sorry sir ! Nani is completely biased initially I supported nani but later on previous episode shows nani wanted to target kaushal!He supports geeta, roll ,useless tanish , stupid Deepthi” (sic)
The trailer has raked in more than 3M views at the time of writing. Directed by Sriram Aditya and featuring music by Mani Sharma ‘Devadas’ is all set to release on September 27.