Tanuj Virwani reveals ex Akshara Haasan’s reason for not defending him in leaked pics scandal; it involves her father

Actor Tanuj Virwani, who was in the eye of the storm after private pictures of his ex-girlfriend Akshara Haasan were leaked, has said that he expected her to issue a public statement that would remove suspicion from him. But she didn’t, and they haven’t spoken since.

In an interview, Tanuj Virwani said that he and Akshara Haasan had a mutual breakup, but their bond was tested when her private pictures were leaked on the internet, and the public began to suspect that he had a role to play in the incident.

He told RJ Siddharth Kannan, “Everything that came out in the media was very unfortunate. Because Akshara and I had a mutual breakup; she went her way, I went my way. In fact, we were friends, even after we parted ways. And then this whole thing about leaked pictures came out, and I’d just started climbing the ladder of my career. And I was like, ‘Man, I really don’t need this right now. This is not what I’m working for. Everything that I do, this is getting in the way of that’.”

But, he added, ‘In society, it’s not innocent until proven guilty, it’s guilty until proven innocent’. He said that for a few months after the incident, he’d constantly be hounded by ‘dirty questions’ about it. He said that he felt worse for Akshara than himself.

Tanuj said that he called Akshara up and asked if she thought he’d leaked the pictures. She told him she didn’t. When Tanuj was asked if he’d have liked for her to have made a statement in his defence, he said, “I picked up the phone and asked her, ‘Do you think I did this?’ and she said, ‘Of course not’. So I’m like, ‘So that means I didn’t do it, so if you make one call, or put out one social media post that ‘hey, he didn’t do it’, because pictures can be leaked, we all live in vulnerable times… And I’m like, ‘Why can’t you say I didn’t do it, everyone will shut up’. And she was like her dad is getting into politics right now and she can’t do it. That was the last conversation we had.”

Also read: Tanuj Virwani says he was disappointed with ex Akshara Haasan after her photos were leaked: ‘She did not stand up for me’

Tanuj said that ‘unfortunately’, they don’t speak to each other anymore, despite having had a ‘strong equation’ once upon a time.