Internet says it's the ‘funniest thing ever’ for Naga Vamsi to believe there's no nepotism in Tollywood

In a recent interview, producer Naga Vamsi was asked about nepotism and he replied that he doesn't believe it exists in Tollywood. Internet reacts.

It’s not a secret that some of the top actors in the Telugu film industry belong to legacy families like Nandamuri, Akkineni-Daggubati, Konidela-Allu, Uppalapati, Ghattamaneni, et al. And yet, producer Naga Vamsi told Galatta Plus recently that ‘there’s not much nepotism in Telugu’, leaving the internet bamboozled. Here’s how they reacted. (Also Read: Naga Vamsi says south makers 'think twice before making good films', calls money more important, Boney Kapoor chides him)

Naga Vamsi is being called out for his take on nepotism in Tollywood.

What Naga Vamsi said

Vamsi was asked why there’s no conversation around nepotism in the south film industries when there’s a reckoning happening in Bollywood. The producer immediately replied, “There’s not much nepotism in Telugu. I don’t know about Tamil, I don’t know about Malayalam. I don’t want to comment on other languages which I don’t know. But in Telugu states there’s nothing like nepotism, trust me.”

When met with an incredulous reaction, he even got defensive and said, “You give me an example of, this kind of thing happened in Telugu because of nepotism. If the Telugu industry was more based on nepotism, Nani wouldn’t have been such a big star, Vijay Deverakonda wouldn’t have been such a big star, Siddhu Jonnalagadda wouldn’t have come up, Naveen Polishetty wouldn’t have come up, Adivi Sesh wouldn’t have come up. Nithiin, Sharwanand, nobody is a nepo kid in Telugu.”

Vamsi also questioned if Allu Arjun or Ram Charan can be called ‘just nepo kids’ when they’ve ‘worked so hard’ to be where they are today. It’s worth noting that despite the producer’s claims, Nithiin is distributor N Sudhakar Reddy’s son, and Sharwanand is the cousin of actor Ram Pothineni, producer Sravanthi Ravi Kishore’s son.

How did the internet react

Even die-hard fans of Tollywood actors were confused, given that a considerable chunk of Tollywood consists of actors or technicians with industry connections.

One person wrote on YouTube, “Wow there is no nepotism in telugu? Varun tej is getting 50 cr films back to back even though past films were utter disasters. Take example of MAD, Narne nitin who is the brother in law of Ntr is getting multiple films though Sangeeth shobhan star of MAD is yet to sign his second film.”

One person posted a clip of the interview on X (formerly Twitter), writing, “Naga Vamsi saying "there's no nepotism in telugu film industry" is gotta be the funniest thing ever!” Another posted a Brahmanandam meme to describe Vamsi’s attitude of ‘Asal nepotism ye ledu (Nepotism doesn’t exist)’ in the interview.

An X user even called it a 'clown-to-clown conversation' because some fans were defending Vamsi’s statement, writing, “TFI Banisas defending Naga Vamsi's defense of Nepotism.”

An X user also pointed out that the top stars in Tollywood belong to film families, writing, “Naga Vamsi is always High on his own Self NOT AWARE World. There is no Nepotism in Telugu Industry according to him. Meanwhile: #Prabhas #Ramcharan #JrNTR #AlluArjun.”

Another person wrote, “The whole Tollywood Industry is running because of the family tree. Imagine seeing Jr Ntr's first movies and telling this.” Some even pointed out that Vamsi also belonged to a film family, given that his uncle was producer Suryadevara Radha Krishna.