Javed Akhtar apologises for calling Rashmika Mandanna a Tamil actor

Javed Akhtar apologises to Rashmika (Pics/X)

Javed Akhtar recently came out in support of Rashmika Mandanna when she was trolled over her South Indian accent. While doing so, he referred to Rashmika as a Tamil actress, which drew flak from netizens. He has now apologised for his mistake after a social media user pointed out that she is from Karnataka.

Javed Akhtar apologises

When a netizen said, "She is a Kodava from Karnataka, and they speak Kodava and Kannada," Javed replied, "I am sorry, I was wrong. I don't know her personally, and incidentally, the only film I have seen of hers was in Tamil. But Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada is not the issue. If someone speaks our language, even with a certain accent, we should appreciate that. Btw, how many of us speak English with a perfect accent? How would we like it if any Englishman makes fun of us?"

Taking to his official X (earlier known as Twitter) timeline, Akhtar wrote, "Those who have any problem with the pronunciation of Tamil actor Rashmika should be given a few lines of Tamil, which is the oldest spoken language in the world, and let's see how well they pronounce Tamil. This fake and baseless linguistic superiority is not acceptable. (sic)"

Correcting him, one of the netizens wrote in the comment section, "Very true, sir, but she is from Karnataka, working predominantly in Telugu."

Another one shared, "But she is a Kannada girl who married into a Telugu family. Where does Tamil come from?"

When Rashmika spoke about getting trolled for her accent

Mandanna has often been trolled over her Hindi pronunciation in films. However, her recent appearance on Karan Johar's Koffee With Karan Season 9 fuelled the trolling again after she said she is an actor from the South and will have the accent. She added that it is "unreasonable to think otherwise".

The filmmaker asked the actor if she was ever bothered by the criticism. "I didn't have an issue with that because they said I had a South Indian accent, but I am from the South of India. So I am going to have an accent," she said.

Mandanna attended the show alongside her husband and actor Vijay Deverakonda.