Alia Bhatt has an EPIC response to trolls: Love it when people call me dumb, unintelligent

Everything is going well for golden girl Alia Bhatt, from her Hollywood debut with Heart of Stone to her being pregnant, but certain public events from her past refuse to die down. The actor, however, is unfazed. 

It so happened that back in 2013, she made an appearance on Karan Johar’s chat show Koffee With Karan where she was asked to name the then President of India. Alia answered, incorrectly, saying it was Prithviraj Chauhan instead of Dr. Pranab Mukherjee. Even after all these years, the actress is often mocked and made fun of for her supposed low IQ. 

It didn’t help that over the last decade, Alia has frequently been asked questions related to current affairs and general knowledge by the media. During her latest appearance at an event hosted by The Indian Express, the low intelligence bit resurfaced. However, Alia was quick to douse the fire by naming the current President of India, Droupadi Murmu Ji.

Alia was then asked about her overall growth from that incident in 2013 to now being called wise beyond her years, and the actor had an epic reply for those who have been trolling her for almost a decade now. She told The Indian Express that she loves it when she is labelled dumb and unintelligent as it only adds to her growing popularity. 

“I love it when people think that I am unintelligent or that ‘oh she is so dumb.’ I genuinely do, because they make so many memes on me, which add to the popularity, and then it’s like you are loving my movies. So there is possibly something that I am doing right in the movie business. I also want to put out this message for young girls, general knowledge and bookish intelligence, in my opinion, are not intelligence. To survive in a world, you have to have a certain emotional intelligence, which is possibly the highest form of intelligence,” she told The Indian Express. 

Addressing the controversy from the chat show yet again, Alia clarified that she had known the answer but was confused as Dr. Mukherjee was yet to take the oath. “My father says ‘rather be stupid than pretend to be intelligent.’ I had this interview on July 23 when somebody asked me who is the President of India and I was like right now the ceremony hasn’t happened yet, so I am not sure what to say. So I would rather not say anything. In my defence, for the millionth time, I knew who the President of India was (in 2013). It was just confusing. You put anybody in the spot and ask them to give an answer, all wrong answers come out,” she clarified.

For the uninitiated, Alia Bhatt is marking her debut as a producer with Darlings, which releases on Netflix on August 5, 2022. The film has her playing the lead and features Vijay Varma, Roshan Mathew, and Shefali Shah in pivotal roles.