Anurag Kashyap feels guilty for turning down Sushant Singh Rajput's request weeks before his death: 'He wanted to talk'

Anurag Kashyap has said he gets ‘pangs of guilt’ for ignoring Sushant Singh Rajput ’s request for a conversation related to work three weeks before his death and also expressed how sorry he felt after badmouthing Abhay Deol in public. The filmmaker who seems to have gone through a phase of introspection said that he regrets lashing out of anger and reacting to things in public space.

In an interview with Showsha, Anurag referred to his public spat with Abhay Deol who he had worked with in Dev D, and said that he apologised profusely to the actor after claiming that the actor is difficult to work with and made demands of being put up in five star hotels when they worked together. He further spoke about ignoring Sushant Singh Rajput’s manager approaching him to initiate a conversation related to work and how he turned it down because he had previously been ghosted by the actor in past.

He told the publication, “A lot has changed, but I know I have no filter. But it’s also made me realise I don’t need to say everything… For example, that whole spat between me and Abhay. Somebody was doing an article about why a very good actor like Abhay is no longer in the movies, and I spoke about my experiences, something that happened 13 years ago. I didn’t need to say it publicly. And the day the unfortunate incident happened of SSR, I felt so bad. Three weeks prior to that somebody was trying to reach out because he wanted to talk, and I was like, ‘No, he ghosted me, I don’t want to talk’. You get pangs of guilt. So, I tried to reach out to Abhay and I apologised to him, because somebody had told me that he was upset about me speaking publicly about him.”

Abhay Deol during a recent round of promotions for his web series A Trial By Fire, called Anurag a ‘liar’ and ‘toxic person’. The filmmaker had shared his chat with Sushant’s manager where he had called the actor ‘problematic’ after he was requested to consider Sushant for a role and said that he had his reasons for turning down the actor.

Sushant Singh Rajput died in 2020 in his Bandra based apartment sending shock waves across the industry. Anurag Kashyap had then in an interview explained his issues with Sushant and claimed that the actor had ghosted him post the success of M.S. Dhoni and also abandoned a project with him for an offer to work with YRF.