Actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas, who opened up about being sidelined in Bollywood and running out of offers during a podcast with actor-director Dax Shepard, also spoke about the Telugu film RRR (2022). While discussing the film, Shepard referred to it as a “Bollywood film”, but Jonas quickly corrected him, calling it a “Tamil film”.

This ‘correction’ caused a stir on the internet, with some criticizing Jonas for her mistake, and soon enough, memes and jokes followed. One user tagged Jonas in a tweet and wrote, “Lost all respect.” Another user added, “IDK what’s the context. She could have done some research before mentioning but could have just (said) Indian film. This south vs south, north vs south is getting too much these days .. Feels like stan Twitter fan wars. (sic)”  

During the conversation, Shepard was comparing Bollywood to the 1950s in Hollywood, when a few stars and big studios controlled everything. Jonas agreed. She said, “I don’t think you are far from it. I think that was what it was… big studios, five actors… big movies will be made by them; but the game has changed so much now. First of all, it’s streaming. It has given access to so many people who are making content.”

She further added that Bollywood has evolved, to which Shepard interrupted and mentioned RRR. Jonas quickly corrected him, “That’s a Tamil movie by the way. It’s like a big, mega, blockbuster Tamil which does all of those… it’s like our Avengers (sic).”

Fans are even more surprised because Jonas just hosted the South Asian Excellence Pre-Oscar Party, which was attended by Ram Charan, one of the lead actors of RRR.