Sunny Leone vs Bhupendra Chaubey

"What an ass"

We kept hearing ourselves repeat those words over and over whilst we watched the interview online. By the time we got to watching the video, it had already taken up way too much space on the Facebook homepage. It had been trending for a few hours. Cheers of Bravado for Leone's ability to handle an interviewer like Chaubey seem to have been doing the rounds. Only we hadn't watched it yet. And then it began.

What an ass.

This was weird for me because I know the man. I've met him a few times while I worked at CNN IBN. Our paths barely crossed because he is a journalist and I pretended to be one while I monkeyed around on Entertainment shows for a few years across news networks. If reputation or hearsay had anything to do with this, I wasn't entirely surprised he sounded the way he did asking questions. Still, it seemed fairly odd that a journalist of that repute would hide behind phrases like "People say..." "They feel" when he perhaps bit his tongue every time he wanted to just say "I think I'm too ashamed to be interviewing a former porn goddess given my journalistic credentials".

Again I'm only assuming.

It's fair to imagine that like any other hormone driven lad, in his time Mr. Chaubey has pleasured himself watching porn. If not more recently.  To say that he isnt great friends with his right or left hand (unless he is ambidextrous) seems a highly unlikely possibility. I really did hope at some point in the interview Leone would've jumped in and said " Are you saying this..or is someone else". And it really would've been exciting to see his reaction if she asked her interviewer ,When was the last time he watched some Girls gone wild.

I've interviewed Pamela Anderson while I was hosting a show for Headlines Today and I had no problem admitting I was a big fan. In fact I'd cheekily suggested the idea of shooting our interview on the bed, to which the PR person (who happened to be a friend) told me to politely " to not push it". We had fun. Interview done. She was promoting Big boss, I was getting a fun story. Just another day at work.

I guess that would've been to vanilla for Bhupendra Chaubey. I guess he needed to do something more attention grabbing. To single handedly give an actress the credit for the consumption of porn in a country to rise is giving one person too much credit, I thought. That Leone handled him well is public info now. But why would a journalist with a presumably sharp mind do something so stupid?

He could've asked her the usual 'tell us about your role' kinda questions. Then again, an intern could've done that. He needed to make sure his interview grabbed eye balls. It certainly did. As an addition, his balls are being grabbed by all of social media for an interview that didn't need to be as "grilling" as he attempted to make it. She wasn't on Karan Thapar's show for crying out loud! And he would've done this with his trademark quiet grin and gotten away with it.

Perhaps, its a lil sweet spot I have for CNN IBN (the owners of which have changed since I worked there!), but still We'll give Mr Chaubey the benefit of doubt here. Perhaps he was nervous. We've all said silly things to someone we really like when we meant to do the exact opposite!

For all you know, Mr Chaubey was just excited he was on a date with this gorgeous girl he's probably spent so much time with, in his brain. And then he just started saying stupid things as opposed to saying what he really wanted to. "I'm a big fan"

Just to give him the benefit of doubt, coz we do like creating monsters out of nothing...My interactions with him were pretty sweet. Nice guy.

Maybe this is just the case of a nervous lover boy . Or maybe...What an ass!