Ram Gopal Varma was once a highly revered and popular director but of late he has become nothing but a nuisance. Now RGV has poked his nose into the Sri Reddy- Pawan Kalyan scandal and the matter took a further nasty turn. A phone conversation Sri Reddy had with fellow artists, Tamanna Simhadri was leaked online on Wednesday. In the conversation, the actress accuses Varma of hatching a plan to kill her fight against sexual exploitation. In the video Sri Reddy is heard saying to Simhadri, “Varma offered me 5 crore, but I did not accept it. He is the one who told me to call Pawan Kalyan ‘mad****od’. Because I used that expletive, the whole movement has gotten diluted and all the junior artistes have turned against me.”

The phone conversation became viral on social media and after a few hours, RGV released a video admitting that he had actually gone ahead and instigated Reddy to abuse Kalyan. He wrote on Twitter, “It was me who is responsible for @MsSriReddy saying that to @PawanKalyan ..it is not her fault.”

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https://twitter.com/RGVzoomin/status/986639039938924544

https://twitter.com/RGVzoomin/status/986836780992393216

Apparently, the filmmaker had advised Reddy to use that expletive as it had caught public fancy after being used in the hit film, Arjun Reddy. He also claimed to have offered Reddy a sum of Rs 5 crore to drop her case against Abhiram Daggubati.

Later on, the filmmaker took to Twitter to render an apology to Pawan Kalyan, his family and his fans. However, a closer look at his words in the video shows a futile and desperate attempt to clear him.

https://twitter.com/RGVzoomin/status/986863663360434176

RGV’s attempts at supposedly helping Sri Reddy as well as Suresh Babu are lame excuses especially when he is resorting to bribing her to withdraw her case of sexual exploitation. His offer of paying Reddy Rs 5 crore to settle the case against Suresh’s son Abhiram clearly shows his misogynistic mindset and where his loyalties lie. When a woman is crying out loud that she was exploited by men in the industry what kind of a man tries to stifle her voice by offering her money?

Isn’t that what the entire fiasco is about, that the men at powerful positions exploit girls in a vulnerable position? Powerful men like RGV are manipulating Reddy so that the real issue of sexual exploitation in the Telugu film industry gets sidelined.