Ahead of Bollywood comeback in ‘Gadar 2’, Ameesha Patel lashes out at director Anil Sharma for not paying dues to crew; blasts ‘jealous’ peers for trying to sabotage her

Ahead of her grand Bollywood comeback, Ameesha Patel got into a spat with director Anil Sharma, who directed the 2001 blockbuster ‘Gadar: Ek Prem Katha’ starring Patel and Sunny Deol, as well as the sequel ‘Gadar 2’ which sees the leads reprising their roles.
A few weeks ago, the ‘Kaho Na Pyaar Hai’ star accused Sharma’s production house Anil Sharma Productions of mismanagement. Taking to Twitter, Patel claimed that the makeup artists and costume designers did not get their dues. She wrote, “ Another concern of fans has been about certain incidents regarding Anil Sharma Productions to have taken place in regards to the final schedule of Gadar 2 that took place end May in Chandigarh!!

There were certain queries that many technicians like makeup artists, costume designers, and others, etc. did not receive their rightful remuneration and dues from Anil Sharma Productions!! Yes, they did not!! But @ZeeStudios_ stepped in and made sure all dues were settled as they are a very professional company!" She also added that many bills such as accommodation to food were left unpaid, and cars were not provided to certain members of the crew until Zee Studios stepped in.

In an interview with Dainik Bhaskar, Sharma dismissed the claims and thanked the actress for making his production house famous. “I have no clue why she said all of this. All I would like to say is that this is all false, none of it is true. At the same time, I would like to thank Ameesha Patel. She made my production house famous. What can be bigger than this? I thank her for making our new production house famous.”

In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, the spunky actress said that although she tasted success early on in her career, she soon became a target of hate and several jealous colleagues tried to sabotage her.

Patel, who became an overnight star after her debut film ‘Kaho Na Pyaar Hai’ (which also marked the acting debut of Bollywood’s ‘Greek God’ Hrithik Roshan) became a phenomenal success at the box-office, claimed that several of her peers who hailed from filmy families could not tolerate her success and tried to get her dropped from projects.

“When I entered the film industry, I only had film actors’ kids or producers’ kids enter with me, it was Kareena Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Tushar Kapoor, Esha Deol, Fardeen Khan, you name it, you turn your head and it was a film family third generation person coming in. I was the outsider and I was anyway this south Bombay (girl) looked upon as a snob because I was the educated outsider. I was the one who did not b**** on sets, I read books, I did not gossip, so I was anyway called a snob because I chose to read,” she told the entertainment portal.

She went on to add that she was soon sabotaged by more well-connected peers. “There was a lot of jealousy, snatching films from under your nose. There was a lot of cutting you off from films which I did not realise at that time that I have signed my films, blocked my dates but suddenly I am not on that set and a few months later someone else is,” she stated.

Patel was last seen in the 2018 family-comedy drama ‘Bhaiaji Superhit’. The movie also starred Deol, Preity Zinta, Arshad Warsi and Shreyas Talpade in pivotal roles.