Several media outlets including The Indian Express, Times of India, Hindustan Times, ABP News, and Times Now ran reports claiming that actor Siddharth criticised women for not celebrating the Royal Challengers Bangalore's recent win in the Women's Premier League.
BOOM found that the claims are false; the statement was made by Siddharth's namesake account on X and is unrelated to the actor.
Led by captain Smriti Mandhana, the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) defeated Delhi Capitals and clinched the title of the Women's Premier League on March 17, 2024.
A user on X, Siddharth (@DearthofSid), quoted a video of the reported celebrations in Bengaluru and wrote, "A team of women won a tournament but not a single woman on the street to celebrate. A quintessential moment of patriarchy in India."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
A news report by The Indian Express carried this tweet with a photo of actor Siddharth and a headline '‘Not a single woman on the street to celebrate’: Siddharth addresses late night celebration after RCB’s win in Women’s Premier League'.
The story, first published on March 18 has now been updated; here is an archive of the original story.
Other outlets including Hindustan Times (archive), Times Now (archive), The Times of India (archive), ETV Bharat (archive), ABP Live (archive), and Mashable (archive) carried similar reports while attributing the post to actor Siddharth.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that Siddharth does not have an account on X; the post was made by an account with a name similar to his.
We scanned the account @DearthofSid that posted the original comment criticising the lack of women during the celebrations for RCB and found that the user had made a recent post about the new header picture.
The picture, shared on March 19, had the text 'X user clarifies that he is not actor Siddharth'
Click here for an archive.
We also found another post by the handle made on the same date, calling out the news outlets that carried the false reports. "Yet another testament to the abysmal standards of India’s mainstream media—this time quite personal," they wrote.
We then searched for actor Siddharth's verified Instagram handle (@worldofsiddharth) and found that he, too, had clarified on his story that he did not write that post. "Important Announcement. I am not on Twitter or X. Please stop crediting me (with) what someone else is saying on that website."
Further, the X handle @DearthofSid clarified that their post was meant to highlight how public spaces are inaccessible to women and how they cannot come out to the streets to celebrate the victory of an all-women's team.