Model and actress Poonam Pandey has left the entire nation furious after she pulled off a publicity gimmick by announcing her death, with the aim of raising awareness around cervical cancer. However, it did not go down well with people who called her out for the cheap and terrible marketing campaign. It may be noted here that Poonam is not the first Bollywood celebrity to fake her death.
In 1994, veteran filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt also faked the death of actress Manisha Koirala ahead of the release of their film Criminal.
Criminal was an action-thriller starring Manisha, Nagarjuna, Ramya Krishna, Nassar, Gulshan Grover and others. In the film, directed by Mahesh Bhatt, Manisha's character dies and to promote it, the filmmaker reportedly published a poster in a newspaper with the headline, "Manisha Koirala has died."
It has also been said that at that time, a few FIRs were also registered against Mahesh Bhatt for the publicity stunt.
A post on Poonam's official Instagram account on Friday (February 2) declared that the actress passed away at her Kanpur residence after battling for her life against cervical cancer. Several celebrities, including her Lock Upp co-contestants, mourned her demise on social media platforms and the news of her sudden death shocked the entire nation.
However, in a shocking U-turn, the actress "came back from the dead" on Saturday afternoon and stated that the stunt was to create chatter around cervical cancer and its vaccination.
She posted a video to clarify that she's alive, however, netizens slammed her and demanded legal action against her.
Though she apologised for the publicity stunt and even broke down on camera, celebs slammed the actress for her tone deaf approach towards a disease as serious as cervical cancer and for using the news of her death as loosely as she did.
