A few days after walking off the stage during a performance in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, Monali Thakur addressed the incident on Monday. She called for strict regulations to protect artists, both onstage and backstage. In December of last year, the singer of "Haan Ke Haan" abruptly left the stage, and the video of the incident quickly went viral. In an Instagram post, Thakur addressed the harassment accusations made by the event management team against her and her crew. She also called out the management for mistreating vendors and exploiting them. “Disrespecting and harassing those working behind the scenes—be it backstage crew, artist managers, or coordinators—is never the right approach,” she stated in a lengthy Instagram post. Slamming the event management team for misusing the laws for sexual harassment, the singer wrote, “Weaponizing such laws for personal vendetta, ego satisfaction, or retaliation against those who refused to comply with unethical practices is not only a gross abuse of rights but also deeply disrespectful to genuine survivors of these heinous crimes,” she wrote. Thakur further urged for stricter regulations to be put in place to protect artists and the crew. She also thanked the Uttar Pradesh Police and the Varanasi Police Department for their swift action to resolve the matter. Along with the post, she also attached the apology and confession letter issued by the founder of the event organising company. See the post here: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Monali Thakur (@monalithakur03) On December 22, a video of the National Award-winning singer lashing out at the management during her performance emerged on social media. In the video, she also apologised to the audience for ending the show abruptly. “I hope I grow so big that I can take all the responsibility myself and never have to rely on any Tom, Dick, and Harry who are such a useless, unethical, and irresponsible, to begin with. I sincerely apologise that we have to shut down this show, but I am going to come back for sure. And I hope I can give you a much better event than this. So, forgive us,” she said.
