Even actors haven’t been paid yet, says source on Jackky Bhagnani’s non payment of fees to cast and crew of his films
While actors of Jackky Bhagnani's Bade Miyan Chote Miyan maintain silence when we reach out, sources say even they haven't been paid their fees fully yet.
Jackky Bhagnani is in trouble. Several social media users, who claim to have worked on projects under his banner Pooja Entertainment, have alleged that they still haven't been paid their dues for their work.
A crew member, Ruchita Kamble, took to Instagram and urged people not to work with the production house owned by Jackky and his father, Vashu Bhagnani. She wrote, “Not the one to ever make such posts but sometimes people need to be ousted! Seeing my team and the crew I worked with struggle day in and out to just get hold of our own hard earned money has compelled me to make this post. Read the sheer frustration of these young girls who have beautifully stated the absolute disregard @pooja_ent has and the sheer unprofessional, unethical behaviour that we all have been tolerating for way too long”.
Vaishnavi Paralikar, whose Insta bio mentions that she works in the production design department for films, also penned a note, "I did a movie 2 years ago with a very well known production house. Me along with atleast a 100 crew members our awaiting our payments (2 month salaries) since 2 years. Meanwhile actor have been paid immediately because they are ACTORS. None of the producers have an answer to our question..."
We did our own digging, and several sources confirm that the news is indeed true. "While the Insta post of Vaishnavi says that actors have been paid, in reality none of the actors on Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, Jackky's latest production in question- Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Sonakshi Sinha, Alaya F, Prithviraj Sukumaran - have been paid. Much like the crew even the actors were promised payment after completion of the film, but the promise was not kept. The actors promoted the film in good faith as they were told that the payments would come through after release. Even that didn't happen."
Says another source, "The producers keep saying there's no money, but they've recently sold their film to an OTT platform. It was surprising to see Jackky and Rakul's destination wedding, at a time the actors and crew were being denied money in the name of lack of funds."
HT City reached out to the cast of BMCM. While Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha remained unavailable for comment, Tiger Shroff replied, “I have nothing to say at the moment”. Ronit Roy, too, responded with “Nothing to say.”