Bollywood, Karan Johar Targeted For 'Toxic Nepotism' After Sushant's Suicide Linked to Depression

Almost immediately after the news of Sushant’s demise broke on social media, members of the Indian film fraternity began expressing their grief and shock on Instagram and Twitter. One of them was director, producer and owner of the Dharma Productions – Karan Johar.

In his post for Sushant, Karan, who had been called the “flag bearer of nepotism” by actress Kangana Ranaut earlier, mentioned that he did feel at times that the young actor “may have needed people to share (his) life with” – but the director-producer “somehow never followed up on that feeling”.

​Netizens were quick to post screenshots of the engineer-turned-actor, casually mentioning during interviews how he wasn't invited to the social gatherings of Bollywood's inner circles on social media. Interview excerpts of other self-made stars like Ayushmann Khurrana and his experiences with being denied work by Karan's production house Dharma are also splashed all over social media.

​In the recent years, Bollywood has witnessed star-studded launches of several young actors including Ananya Pandey, Sara Ali Khan, Janhvi Kapoor, Tara Sutaria, Tiger Shroff, Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and others -- related to film families in India. All of the star kids were launched by established Bollywood directors including Karan – who many star kids refer to as their “godfather” in the movie business.

On the other hand, actors from outside like Sushant, Kangana, Ayushmann, Bhumi Pednekar, Rajkummar Rao, Kartik Aryan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui among others did not have it as easy as the star kids – and they have been publicly vocal about it.

​Bollywood is considered a hyper-competitive industry to thrive and survive in, especially for outsiders.

Sushant, who was a ranker techie in the country, changed the trajectory of his career when he quit IT and entered the entertainment industry – which he thought was his calling.

From a background dancer to a successful TV soap actor, the actor finally debuted in Bollywood in 2013 with a superhit film titled “Kai Po Che”.

His recent films, “Chhichore” and “Kedarnath” were also successful, and were critically acclaimed at the box office.

The late actor will be seen in a ready-for-release Hindi adaptation of “The Fault in Our Stars”.