'Stole another woman's husband': Nayanthara was attacked for playing Sita in Sri Rama Rajyam; left alcohol, non-veg food

Written By Aman Wadhwa | Updated: Nov 20, 2024, 05:42 PM IST

Nayanthara as Sita in Sri Rama Rajyam

Nayanthara's casting as Sita in the 2011 Telugu film Sri Rama Rajyam was questioned due to her alleged affair with Prabhu Deva, who was married at that time.

The 2011 Telugu devotional film Sri Rama Rajyam was based on the events that happened in the mythological epic Ramayana after Lord Rama and Sita came back to Ayodhya after defeating Ravana in Lanka. Nandamuri Balakrishna played Rama, while Nayanthara was seen as Sita in the Bapu directorial, that went on to become a blockbuster.

However, before its release, Nayanthara's casting as Sita was questioned due to her alleged affair with Prabhu Deva, who was married at that time. Slamming the actress for playing Sita, the former secretary of the Telangana-based Hindu nationalist party Hindu Makkal Katchi had said, "The epic is based on the principle of 'one man, one woman in life' and Nayanthara has ruined the concept by stealing another woman’s husband. So she doesn’t have any right to play the role of Goddess Sita."

In her recently released documentary Nayanthara: Beyond The Fairytale, it is shown that how Nayanthara remained determined to her character for the film despite facing a huge backlash. Raju, one of the film's crew member, is heard saying in the documentary, "There was a strong opposition to her playing the role (Sita) in that film. There were protests in both Tamil and Telugu industries. They were dead against her playing the role of Goddess Sita. She overcame all of it to build that character. Right from the beginning till the end of the shooting, she was staying at Taj Krishna, a non-vegetarian hotel. But she never ate or drank water from that hotel. Until we completed the shoot for the film, we used to bring her vegetarian food from outside."

Meanwhile, Nayanthara has been embroiled in controversy due to her Netflix documentary. Also known as the Lady Superstar, the actress has accused Dhanush of demanding Rs 10 crore for alleged copyright infringement as the documantary features BTS footage from his production Naanum Rowdy Dhaan. The 2015 film starred Vijay Sethupathi and Nayanthara in the leading roles and was directed by Vignesh Shivan. Vignesh and Nayanthara fell in love on the sets of this film.

In the documentary, it was inevitable that clips of Naanum Rowdy Dhaan would be used to show how Nayanthara and Vignesh's love story began. But, Dhanush didn't allow the actress to use any of the footage and instead slammed her with a legal case when just 3 seconds of the BTS clips were included in the trailer.

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