Naveen Richard, Sumukshi Suresh on Better Life Foundation cancellation: One should recognise other artistes' efforts

Days after season two of Better Life Foundation was dropped from Hotstar amid allegations of sexual harassment against actor-comedian Utsav Chakraborty, the team came out with a statement regarding the same. Comedians Naveen Richard and Sumukhi Suresh posted the statement on Instagram.

The team said that half of their team members from the writers to the cast and crew were women who were not aware of Utsav’s behaviour at the time the show was made. The team questioned whether a similar approach would be meted out to other shows on the platform, Hotstar, if one artiste behaved in a similar way as of Utsav. They also urged Hotstar to not discount the effort of other artists in the show. Along with Better Life Foundation season 2, Hotstar also cancelled production of the comedy collective All India Bakchod’s online show On Air with AIB .  A female Twitter user, who worked as a writer-comedian, charged Chakraborty with sending sexually explicit messages to her and several other women of her acquaintance. Following this, numerous women on Twitter came forward, detailing incidents where Chakraborty had allegedly sent them unsolicited pictures of an explicit nature, asked for nudes, and otherwise behaved in deeply inappropriate ways. Some of the women have said they were minors at the time of being contacted by Chakraborty.