Fact Check: Was Sushant Singh Rajput replaced by Arjun Kapoor in a film due to nepotism?

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Social media has been buzzing with news and information about the late Sushant Singh Rajput since his demise. In some recent posts, people have been sharing a tweet made by writer Chetan Bhagat. The tweet states how Chetan is excited to have Sushant Singh Rajput on board for the movie Half Girlfriend. People started claiming that the movie was offered to Sushant but he was replaced by Arjun Kapoor in the movie. Twitterati linked this to nepotism and slammed Arjun for the same.

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Here are some tweets that shared Chetan Bhagat's post:

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Sushant Singh Rajput had backed off Half-Girlfriend due to committed dates

The part where Sushant Singh Rajput was signed as a part of Half Girlfriend cast is indeed true. However, Sushant was not replaced by Arjun Kapoor as a decision taken by the makers of the film. Sushant Singh Rajput had backed off from the movie as he already had his calendar packed with other committed dates. In an interview traced back in 2015 with a leading news portal, Sushant Singh Rajput had mentioned himself how it was unfortunate that he had to leave Half Girlfriend.  

In the 2015 interview, Sushant Singh Rajput had said that it was very unfortunate that he could not be a part of Half Girlfriend. He had shared that he was excited about working with Ekta Kapoor once again but the dates did not work out for him. He had also revealed that Half Girlfriend's team wanted the same dates as Dinesh Vijan's film which he was supposed to do next. He was committed to the dates for a long time and thus had to pull out Mohit Suri's project. 

Dinesh Vijan's film that Sushant has referred to is Raabta. Sushant starred alongside Kriti Sanon in the movie and it was released in 2017. Before Half Girlfriend, people had also claimed that Sushant Singh Rajput was replaced by Ranveer Singh by YRF in Befikre as well. This was cleared out as well as Sushant Singh Rajput had said in a 2017 interview that he was not offered it in the first place. 

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Sushant Singh Rajput's death

Since Sushant Singh Rajput's death, it was revealed that the actor had seven movies lined up but was replaced in each one of them. This triggered an array of tweets about people pointing out how Sushant was removed from movies and replaced by other actors, calling it an act of nepotism. As per many social media users, some people inside the Bollywood film industry are to be blamed for Sushant's decision of suicide as they never made Sushant feel at home. 

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