Expresso TV and OTT Shows News Update at 6:30 pm on 20 June 2023

Let's begin with our top story. For the first time in the history of Bigg Boss in less than just 12 hours, a contestant was evicted from the show. Puneet Kumar aka Puneet Superstar was ousted after other housemates stated they won’t be able to adjust with him. After a little showdown, he walked out, with others heaving a sigh of relief. However, there’s no clarity on whether Puneet would be back on the show later. Before entering the show, Puneet spoke to indianexpress.com and shared that his fans had been requesting him to be on a TV show for a long time. Puneet also shared that his personality is ‘genuine’, and be it ‘comedy’ or his ‘dialogues’, everything is real.

On Day 2 of Big Boss OTT, the contestants were seen forming connections inside the house and sharing anecdotes of their personal lives. Pooja Bhatt was seen candidly sharing about her journey of overcoming alcoholism at the age of 44. During a chat with Cyrus Broacha, she said, “I had a drinking problem, and that’s why I acknowledged my addiction and made the decision to quit." adding, “Society gives a license to men and thus they can openly speak about being addicted and recovering from alcoholism. However, women don’t openly drink and so they don’t openly recover. I used to drink openly so when I thought of recovering from alcoholism, I realised that why should I recover in the closet?”

In two days of the Bigg Boss OTT 2 launch, the contestants have been serving drama in abundance. From Jiya Shankar-Palak Purswani talking about their now sour friendship to Manisha Rani and Akanksha Puri trying to catch Jad Hadid’s attention, fans have plenty to talk about. Amid this, Aaliya Siddiqui also opened up about her relationship with Nawazuddin Siddiqui and recalled their love story while speaking to Cyrus Broacha. Before entering the show, Aaliya had spoken about finding love again and how she hopes Nawaz would realise she was wronged in their relationship. She also shared that given Nawaz’s job, they haven’t lived together a lot, so he might be surprised to see her real side on the show.

Talking about her decision to enter Bigg Boss, Aaliya said she has always wanted to be in front of the camera, that she’s been part of a couple of projects down south, and has also done item songs before being married. She wanted to be a director and thus decided to start her own production house. Aaliya recently hinted at finding love again via a social media post. When asked about the same, she shared, “He is someone more than a friend. But we aren’t planning on getting married or anything. I want to live my life with my kids and start my career. We all need mental support, a companion in life, and he’s the one for me.”

Meanwhile, fans of singer Neha Kakkar suspected trouble in her marriage with Rohanpreet Singh as he was missing from the photos of her 35th birthday celebration. But, Neha has put all speculations to rest with her latest Instagram post with him. The photos are from the vacation they took recently. In the first photo, Rohan is seen kissing Neha while they are presumably sitting at a restaurant. Neha is dressed in black and Rohanpreet is wearing a white shirt and a black turban. She captioned the pics, “Back in town from the Best holiday spent with Hubby!!" Neha got married to fellow singer Rohanpreet on October 24, 2020. They fell in love when creating their music video “Nehu Da Vyah”.

One might think that Manoj Bajpayee’s fortunes had changed after the success of his Prime Video show The Family Man. But the actor has revealed that, contrary to popular opinion, he was quite ‘underpaid’ by the platform. He admitted that his fees for the show did not match Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan’s remuneration, or that of any other big star. In an appearance on the Unfiltered by Samdish YouTube channel, the actor was asked about his bank balance. With a laugh, he said that it isn’t possible to be rich by doing films like Bhosle and Gali Guleiyan. When the interviewer pointed out that he stars in the ‘world’s biggest show’, Manoj said that he still isn’t paid enough.

In other news, the upcoming series Scam 2003: The Telgi Story will be released on September 2, SonyLIV announced as the streaming platform completed three years. It is a follow-up to Hansal Mehta’s 2020 hit Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story. The series will tell the story of Abdul Karim Telgi, a counterfeiter who printed fake stamp paper. The web series has been adapted from the Hindi book Reporter ki Diary, authored by journalist Sanjay Singh, who broke the story.

Lastly, Sudha Murty has been delighting people by sharing sweet anecdotes from her life and marriage with Infosys founder Narayan Murthy. In the latest video from The Kapil Sharma Show, she shared how her father questioned her why she was marrying a person who was unemployed. Sudha shared that since she was from a middle-class family her father, who was a doctor, was worried that she was marrying a man who doesn’t have a job and didn’t know how to introduce him to his friends if they ask what her husband does. She responded she told him that he should say he is Sudha’s husband.

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