Now Reading: Radhika Apte draws flak for ‘hated’ Legend remark
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Radhika Apte draws flak for ‘hated’ Legend remark
The Story in Brief
Radhika Apte has faced online backlash after saying she ‘hated’ working on the 2014 Telugu film Legend, starring Nandamuri Balakrishna. During a Zoom fan interaction, she called the film, without naming it, her toughest, describing a storyline where her character marries her uncle and romances a much older actor, calling it ‘a very patriarchal situation’. Audiences identified the film from her clues.
Users on X criticised her for sharing regret a decade later, noting she reunited with Balakrishna for the 2017 film Lion. Some fan pages reposted old clips of Apte praising Legend. Neither Balakrishna nor the film’s team has commented. Apte currently features in Netflix’s Akka and the 2026 anthology Lust Stories 3.
Indian Opinion Analysis
Cinema Express and TrackTollywood both report the same triggering interview, but Cinema Express carries the controversy, netizen backlash, old praise clips, and the detail that Apte later worked with Balakrishna again, while TrackTollywood gives only Apte’s criticism without any reaction. The outlets diverge on framing, not on facts. Cinema Express foregrounds the decade-later timing and the contradictory behavior, creating a he-said-she-said debate. TrackTollywood stays strictly on Apte’s own complaint about patriarchy. Neither source reports any response from Balakrishna or the film’s team. The balanced reading is a single actor's candid reflection, met by an online counter-narrative that questions the delayed critique, no official statement follows from either side.
Coverage: 2 sources, 2 neutral
Sources (2): tracktollywood.com (neutral report), cinemaexpress.com (neutral report)
This brief was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above, so one read covers every framing they carry. Methodology and corrections.
