Podcaster Ranveer Allahbadia, known as BeerBiceps, grabbed national attention for asking an obscene question to a contestant on comedian Samay Raina’s YouTube show India’s Got Latent.
The fallout from Allahbadia’s comments has been immense—complaints have been filed and FIRs lodged. From Bollywood to Parliament, the issue has made many uncomfortable.
Now a parliamentary panel is considering calling Allahbadia to appear before them. Additionally, a committee led by BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has urged the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to respond with potential legal reforms to prevent incidents like this.
In response to the public outcry, while Allahbadia issued an apology, Raina deleted all episodes of India’s Got Latent from his YouTube channel on Wednesday, a day after the Mumbai Police visited Allahbadia’s residence.
Allahbadia, probably the country’s most popular podcaster, whose show often hosts some of India’s most powerful people—industry titans, sports stars, and even cabinet ministers—saw a meteoric rise as a popular internet personality. Apart from tarnishing his image, the controversy brought the spotlight back on the intersection of humour, vulgarity, and the call to criminalise such actions. And that is why Allahbadia is ThePrint’s Newsmaker of the Week.
Who is Ranveer Allahbadia?
Allahbadia comes from a family of doctors and has studied at Dhirubhai Ambani International School and Dwarkadas J. Sanghvi College of Engineering in Mumbai.
“I knew I didn’t want to follow in their footsteps, so engineering seemed like the next best option. I managed to get into an engineering college, and by that time, I had already gotten into fitness,” his bio reads on the official website of BeerBiceps.
Allahbadia revealed that he failed in one of his subjects during college, which became a wake-up call for him.
“I realised I needed to turn my life around. After that, I buckled down, worked hard, and eventually brought my grades up,” said the founder of BeerBiceps Media World Pvt. Ltd. “I also did a few internships, which were eye-opening. It was during these internships that I realized I wanted to start something on my own. So, after completing my engineering degree, I decided to launch a fitness app.”
Today, Allahbadia has 9.6 million followers across three Instagram accounts and 18.8 million followers across two YouTube channels.
In 2024, he was honoured by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the Disruptor of the Year title at the country’s first National Creators Award held in Delhi.
Just two years before that, he featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in the ‘Media, Marketing, and Advertising’ category, for co-founding Monk Entertainment, a talent agency and digital marketing firm, with entrepreneur Viraj Sheth in 2017. Monk Entertainment’s clientele includes Skechers. Sony Music, Puma, and Nykaa Man.
Allahbadia is also the co-founder of Level Supermind, a self-help app, and BeerBiceps SkillHouse, which offers courses in podcasting and video editing.
On his podcast, TRS (The Ranveer Show), he has interviewed actors Priyanka Chopra, Kriti Sanon, Arnold Schwarzenegger, British author Jay Shetty, cricketer Sourav Ganguly, spiritual guru Gaur Gopal Das, and author Amish Tripathi, among others.
Senior BJP leaders and Union ministers, including S Jaishankar, Piyush Goyal, Smriti Irani, and Rajeev Chandrasekhar have also appeared on his podcast.
However, the influencer witnessed a significant drop in his following since the controversy broke out.
HypeAuditor, a data-driven influencer marketing platform, revealed that the Instagram handle of BeerBiceps had 45.27 lakh Instagram followers on 9 February, which dropped to 44.80 lakh by 11 February. The follower count slightly picked up on 13 February to 44.97 lakh.
On Instagram account ‘ranveerallahbadia’ as well, the number of followers went down from 34.39 lakh on Sunday to 34.08 lakh on Wednesday.
Cricketers Virat Kohli and Yuvraj Singh have also reportedly unfollowed him after the controversy.
Also read: TV news was incensed at Ranveer Allahbadia’s ‘cringe’ remark—only to telecast it ad nauseam
Brush with controversy
After clips of Allahbadia from India’s Got Latent started doing rounds on social media on Sunday, Mumbai-based lawyers Ashish Rai and Pankaj Mishra wrote to Mumbai Police Commissioner Vivek Phalsankar and the state women’s commission flagging the podcaster’s disrespectful remarks.
His “perverted” comments sparked massive outrage, drawing reactions from Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, journalist and lyricist Neelesh Misra, and Congress leader Supriya Shrinate, among others.
Amid the backlash, Allahbadia issued an apology, saying “comedy is not my forte.”
“My comment was not just inappropriate, it was not even funny. Comedy is not my forte. I’m sorry…. I am not going to give any context or justification or reasoning behind whatever happened. I am just here for an apology. I personally had a lapse in judgement. It wasn’t cool on my part,” he said in a video.
However, Allahbadia is not new to controversies. In 2021, he faced the heat for tweeting a “life hack” for girls to become “100x more attractive”.
“Long kurti paired with those big earrings… brings all guys to their knees,” he wrote.
He has faced criticism for allowing people on his podcast to make unsubstantiated claims and spread false information without him asking counter questions.
In 2024, he was called out for an unverified claim made on his show about a village in Malappuram, Kerala, enforcing Islamic law.
Along with Allahbadia and Raina, the complaints registered in Guwahati and Mumbai also include the name of influencer Apoorva Makhija, famous as The Rebel Kid.
She was also on the panel of the infamous India’s Got Latent episode, which was available only to paid subscribers of Raina’s YouTube channel. Makhija is being criticised for her use of language on the show.
The internet made Allahbadia. And a “lapse in judgement” cost him his stardom.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)