Comedians Aditi Mittal and Mahima Kukreja have called out Tanmay Bhat for using a mental health issue like depression to try and do damage control in the wake of AIB's fall from grace amid #MeToo allegations.
In a series of Instagram videos last week, Bhat claimed he is suffering from "clinical depression".
"After everything that happened in October, I'm mentally checked out. I feel almost paralysed and unable to participate socially, online or even offline," he said.
Bhat was under attack for his inaction in the complaints against comic Utsav Chakraborty during the #MeToo movement in October 2018.
Last month, comedy group AIB announced that Bhat will step down from the post of CEO and the company's YouTube channel is "dead for the foreseeable future".
On Sunday, Mittal in a series of tweets blasted Bhat for using depression as merely a good for "public consumption". She further said the claims sounded insincere as the corporates had pulled out investment from AIB post #MeToo wave hit the comedy collective.
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"I remember when I had to hear on the set of a show that I was working on that I gave 't** access too soon' coz it was told by Tanmay Bhat to the 22 year old writers on that set. I spent a year saying no to work after that coz I was terrified I would have to hear that again... We've all been f**ked over by life. But apparently depression is only newsworthy when someone who had a corporates throwing money at him stopped having money thrown at him...
"Sisters out there wanting to be symbols and role models of depressed people not being depressed. Like what part of your life will you not sell for public consumption, again? Like, if you want to play depression victim now, you please acknowledge the system of 19-24 year olds with Macs and Twitter accounts, and men with VC funds that you were 'friends' with that led to the depression of so many young women who tried to do comedy at that time," Mittal wrote.
She recalled being "slut shamed" by Chakraborty, former comedian at AIB who was outed by comic Mahima Kukreja as an alleged sexual harasser.
"I remember being slut shamed by Utsav Chakraborty, to a guy that said he liked me. He told the guy 'Be careful of Aditi, she's been around.' It's kind of why I felt so incredibly strongly for Mahima when she spoke up. Because I just couldn't bear to have more of this happen."
She added, "Also FYI my mental trauma is valid and I've f**king dealt with it and will continue to deal with it without hurting women in the process
"I can't get myself to get on stage regularly to perform comedy because I'm afraid to run into your fav woke comic boys who will trigger me and cause me panic attacks but the who the f**k cares right."