Ram Gopal Varma says celebrities condemning Janhvi Kapoor's AI-morphed video only brought it more visibility: ‘Concentrate on catching perpetrator’

After Janhvi Kapoor and Jr NTR condemned the making and circulating of an AI video of Devara song Chuttamalle, Ram Gopal Varma chimes in.

Actor Janhvi Kapoor debuted in Telugu cinema with the 2024 film Devara: Part 1, directed by Koratala Siva. Two years later, she found objectionable AI-morphed videos of herself from the song Chuttamalle circulating online. After she and her co-star condemned the video’s circulation, as did other celebrities from the Telugu film industry, filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma chimed in. He stated that the focus should have been on catching the perpetrator rather than increasing the video's visibility.

Ram Gopal Varma says celebrities only brought the AI video more visibility

Ram Gopal Varma says that talking about the AI-morphed video featuring Janhvi Kapoor and Jr NTR online only increased its circulation.

Without naming Janhvi, RGV wrote in an X (formerly Twitter) post how celebrities only managed to bring more visibility to the AI video. “The only thing all the celebrities succeeded in, is to publicise and thereby make crores and crores of people see the objectionable link,” he wrote.

The filmmaker added that focus should’ve been on catching the perpetrator first, writing, “The smart thing would have been to concentrate on catching the perpetrator and publicise that..Instead what they did is to tweet and bring enormous attention to the victim’s identity and the offensive content which is also a crime.”

On Friday, Jr NTR condemned those who morphed the visuals of the Chuttamalle song from Devara, featuring him and Janhvi. “In a land that worships women as mothers and goddesses, where "Matrudevo Bhava" is not just a phrase but a part of our culture, some people have fallen so low that they are using AI to disrespect a woman in the most degrading way possible. Using AI to create something this vile is shameful beyond words,” read a portion of his note.

Janhvi also addressed the issue on her Instagram stories on Sunday in a long note. She wrote, “The criminal misuse of technology to objectify women and circulate fictionalised content without consent is deeply violating, bordering on sexual assault. Almost every woman in my industry has faced some version of this, and women everywhere are increasingly being subjected to it.” She also thanked Jr NTR, Chiranjeevi, Vijay Deverakonda and Khushbu Sundar for speaking up against it.

“I hope everything unfolding around us right now forces those who participate in any form of harassment to introspect. Is it really too much for a woman to ask to simply be treated and seen as a human being? Her body. Her image. Her boundaries. Her choice,” wrote Janhvi. This year, the actor starred in her second Telugu film Peddi, directed by Buchi Babu Sana and starring Ram Charan. The filmmakers faced controversy over objectifying Janhvi in the film.