In a recent interview, actor Vivek Oberoi broke his silence on feeling like a victim in the industry. The ‘Saathiya’ actor reflected on career setbacks as some “powerful people” decided to take charge of his future in the film industry. Vivek Oberoi hit a slump after his public feud with superstar Salman Khan in 2003.
Brut India shared a video of the ‘Omkara’ actor’s interaction at the India Global Forum, London, in which he opened up about his career plummeting despite achieving a lot of success after certain people intervened. In the interview, Vivek expressed, “I got a lot of success, I was winning a lot of awards in my career, and suddenly it evaporated because a bunch of people, who had a lot of power in Bollywood, decided ‘You are not going to work here anymore; we will make sure that happens.’ I experienced a lot of frustration and pain and anger and felt like a victim, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.”
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The actor also went on to reveal that his mother, Yashodhara Oberoi, was a pillar of strength and support for him. Recalling his mother’s advice, Vivek revealed that his mother asked him to channel his attention into being a hero for someone else and he would feel like one. The only way he could transform from being a victim to being a hero was by being a hero for someone else, so the actor started to find someone for whom he could be a hero.
The interaction is not the first time Vivek has opened up his heart about the past. In an interview with Hindustan Times in 2023, the ‘Prince’ actor revealed facing lobbying and bullying in Bollywood after his 2003 press conference. The actor said, “In hindsight, I went through a lot of stuff that was unnecessary. A lot of lobbies, a lot of repressive stories.” Adding further, Vivek expressed how frustrated and exhausted he felt. After having delivered an award-winning and commercially successful film, ‘Shootout at Lokhandwala,’ the actor revealed that he hadn’t received any projects for 14 months. During that phase in his life, the actor felt he wanted to do something empowering.
For the unversed, in a press conference in 2003, Vivek Oberoi accused actor Salman Khan of threatening him over his relationship with Aishwarya Rai. Aishwarya was previously in a relationship with Salman and had an unpleasant breakup with the ‘Tiger 3’ star.
On the work front, Vivek Oberoi’s last Hindi film was ‘PM Narendra Modi,’ which was released in 2019.