Twitter is awash with the news that film critic Rajeev Masand, who had tried to tarnish Sushant Singh Rajput’s reputation by writing vicious blind items against the actor, has quit film ‘journalism’ and stepped in as the COO of Dharma Cornerstone Agency, new talent management venture started by filmmaker Karan Johar’s Dharma Production in collaboration with Bunty Sajdeh’s Cornerstone. Journalist Soumyadipta took to Twitter to share the news.
Rajeev Masand has finally quit film journalism.
— Soumyadipta (@Soumyadipta) January 15, 2021
He won’t be reviewing films or writing blind items anymore.
He has joined the brand new joint venture of Karan Johar and Cornerstone as Chief Operating Officer.
I think Masand is at the right place. This is where he always belonged. pic.twitter.com/uLn6pKFoN4
Media reports have quoted a source as saying: “Journalist Rajeev Masand is all set to join DCA next week. He’ll be working as the COO of the company. Karan and other top authorities at Dharma believe that he’ll be the right person for the job and help them in scouting fresh talent and managing them.”
On December 15, 2020, Karan Johar had announced the launch of his new venture with Bunty Sajdeh’s Cornerstone Sport and Management.
Disha Salian worked as a manager in Cornerstone, the company which Karan Johar has now tied up with
For the uninitiated, Cornerstone is the same firm where late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s manager Disha Salian worked as a manager before her mysterious death. Both Disha Salian and Sushant Singh Rajput met with mysterious deaths within a fortnight in June 2020. She was working with Cornerstone, through which she came into contact with Sushant.
In fact, in September last year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had summoned Cornerstone CEO Bunty Sajdeh to probe any potential link between the Sushant Singh Rajput case and Disha Salian’s death. Sushant Singh Rajput’s flatmate Siddharth Pithani’s in his first statement to the CBI had disclosed the name of Bunty Sajdeh.
Mumbai police summons film critic Rajeev Masand, now with Karan Johar, for questioning after the death of Sushant Singh Rajput
A month after actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, Mumbai police had summoned film critic Rajeev Masand for questioning. Following summons, issued to him, Rajeev Masand had appeared at the Bandra Police station for questioning.
It may be recalled that film actor Kangana Ranaut, in an interview with a news channel, while speaking of the “movie mafia” behind the systematic discrimination in the movie industry, named Rajeev Masand as one of the people who should be questioned concerning the investigation on Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.
Rajeev Masand, who has now joined Karan Johar, tried to defame Sushant by his ‘vicious and cowardly blind items’
After Sushant Singh Rajput’s untimely death, more and more people from the film fraternity started coming forward to express their fury against Bollywood ‘biggies’ like Mahesh Bhatt, Karan Johar, Yashraj Films and several other prominent individuals of the Bollywood industry, alleging that the culture fostered by them had pushed the young actor to take away his life.
Such reprehension on Bollywood’s ‘powerful and influentials’ got many movie critics and gossip columnists to pen down baseless gossips, allegations and accusations on the actor. One of them being movie critic Rajeev Masand, who tried to defame Sushant by his ‘vicious and cowardly blind items’ written against him. Through his vile attempts, spread across years, Masand has tried to character assassinate the talented actor by attributing terms like ‘skirt-chaser’, ‘overpaid outsider’, an actor with ‘questionable veracity’ and ‘temper tantrums’, to Sushant Singh Rajput.
Karan Johar and Dharma Production in NCB’s radar
Besides being named as one of the flag bearers of the culture of nepotism in Bollywood which allegedly pushed actor Sushant Singh Rajput over the edge, Karan Johar and his company Dharma Production had also got embroiled in a controversy after the filmmaker was summoned by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) to question in the case in December, last year. Johar’s interrogation was reportedly linked to the arrest of Kshitij Ravi Prasad who is said to be a close aide of Johar and worked in his production house, who was arrested in connection with the Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case.
Moreover, the NCB had also issued Karan Johar a notice on the 17th of December demanding an explanation from the filmmaker on the party video that had gone viral. Johar had then sent a bizarre explanation to NCB claiming that he had lost the phone he had used to shoot his 2019 viral party video which had featured many big Bollywood celebrities like Deepika Padukone, Vicky Kaushal, Shahid Kapoor, Ranbir Kapoor, Malaika Arora, Arjun Kapoor, Varun Dhawan, Zoya Akhtar, Ayan Mukerji, Mira Rajput, Shakun Batra and others high on drugs.