Sona Mohapatra targets Salman Khan again, calls him ‘paper tiger’ as Bharat slows down

Singer Sona Mohapatra is in no mood to make peace with actor Salman Khan. On Saturday, she tweeted about his latest film, Bharat’s box office figures and was hardly flattering with her comments.

Tweeted a Box Office India report on Bharat’s showing on its second Friday, she wrote, “Q. What do you call filmi superstars that don’t even deliver a single, full week of returns in the public domain despite all the hype, promotions & posturing? A. Paper Tigers (P.S : Stop worshipping these paper tigers dear #India. Let’s find & BE more worthy ‘heros’).”

Salman’s ambitious new film started off well when it released on Eid (June 5). However, the film began to falter in its second week. After 10 days, the film was struggling to enter the Rs 200 crore club. According to a report in Box Office India, Bharat had made Rs 3.75 crore on its second Friday. The report added that the film’s collections had been aided by the lack of competition from other films.

This is not the first time Sona has targeted Salman. During the promotions of Bharat, Salman has spoken about actor Priyanka Chopra’s sudden decision to quit Bharat. She was the original choice for the role that was later played by Katrina Kaif. In an interview, he had said: “After all this, the ‘Nick story’ happened, the embarrassing thing happened and she chose to get married... Look, she did the right thing. She did what she wanted, and Katrina got what she deserved. She (Priyanka) informed us five days before the schedule was supposed to start... she must have thought that in this way I would get upset with her and will never work with her. She spoke to me saying, ‘Nick has proposed to me and I want to get married, so there will be some date issues’. I said, ‘Sure, get married, we can adjust those two, three days’. Then she said that she does not want to do the film.”

Not impressed, Sona had called him the ‘poster child of toxic masculinity’ for his ‘low brow digs’ at Priyanka. Sona had tweeted: “Cus @priyankachopra has better things to do in life, real men to hang out with & more importantly, girls to inspire with her journey.” She added, “A showcase & poster child of toxic masculinity. Low brow dig at not only a woman who was not in the room but a disgusting disregard & contempt for the woman & colleague sitting next to him in the same room. Unless we call out such serial bad behaviour, nothing changes, #India.”