Utsav Chakraborty is an Indian comedian, writer and actor. He has performed stand-up, written comedy, and acted in sketches and shows, who is known for his frequent collaborations with All India Bakchod.
Career
Chakraborty gained online popularity, in 2012, for operating a Chetan Bhagat troll account called @SatanBhagat on Twitter. He started performing stand-up comedy across India. He was briefly employed as HuffPost India's Trends Editor, for three months in 2015 and later on went on to work as a staff writer at All India Bakchod He has since written for television shows and performed sketches with contemporary Indian comedians. As an actor, and performer, he was known for his frequent collaborations with All India Bakchod on comedy sketches and branded content. Between 2016 and 2018, Chakraborty acted in numerous projects that included branded content, reality television, and comedy sketches. He acted in Behti Naak, a dark-comedyYouTube series and was a recurring cast member in the first two seasons of, mockumentary web-series, Better Life Foundation. During the first half of 2017 he worked as a writer on the second season of Son of Abish—Abish Matthew's YouTube talk show. The following year, Chakraborty was a participant on TLC's comedy reality-TV show in April, and Comedy Central India's Impractical Jokers spinoff ''. He also hosted a YouTube segment for VICE about Indian Men's Rights Activists. In October 2018, a number of unverified allegations of sexual impropriety surfaced on Twitter claiming Chakraborty had allegedly sent unsolicited explicit messages to multiple women. Chakraborty initially apologized for his transgressions, then remained inactive for about a year. In November, 2019, a leaked call recording between him and one of the prime accusers surfaced in which Chakraborty challenged the authenticity of the allegations and claimed the unverified allegations effectively destroyed his career, maligned his reputation and made him suicidal.
Style
Chakraborty's stand up is in nature, a comedic style he cultivated since operating @SatanBhagat. He leveraged his online fame into open-mic spots and writing gigs for comedy sketches and television. He has since won multiple open mics and gigged across India.
Controversy
In October 2018, fellow comedian Mahima Khukhreja tweeted accusing Utsav of sending her a dick pic, followed by screenshots of anonymous messages accusing him of attempting to harass a younger girl. Utsav later said that he never harassed her, and that she was only an year younger at 26 years of age Chakraborty initially apologized and his actions prompted an apology from All India Bakchod. AIB apologized for continuing to work with him after Tanmay Bhat, the chief executive officer at the time, had received “specific, detailed allegations” of sexual harassment against Chakraborty prior to the public call-out. Eight months later, aided by a separate allegation against a co-founder surfaced, AIB fired its staff, and halted production of its YouTube channel, after a majority of brands decided to not work with them.
Consequences
As a result of allegations of sexual misconduct against him, All India Bakchod delisted the videos he worked on from their YouTube channel. AIB's show, On Air With AIB, was cancelled in its third season and some of his work from Queens Vs Kings has also been removed from YouTube, while other projects he worked on remain online. One year later, in October 2019, Chakraborty said he has few friends left and would like to be in therapy but couldn't afford it because he is not working. “I haven’t worked or seen a paycheck since last October,” he said. He admitted his past behavior was “problematic” and realized he made people “uncomfortable,” which took a heavy toll on him. He said the media was irresponsible by exaggerating the accounts relating to his case without any verification or investigations into the allegation.
Aftermath
On November 21, 2019, a year after the initial allegations of sexual impropriety, an audio clip of a conversation between Chakraborty, Kukreja and her sister was uploaded to YouTube. The conversation, broken into two uploads, happened one month after the initial allegations were made public. In it, Chakraborty can be heard listening to Kukreja and her sister, who identified herself as a lawyer, threatening him with legal action as Chakraborty planned to provide evidence that would disprove her accounts of the incident. On the same day, in a flurry of tweets, Utsav claimed that all of the earlier allegations were false, stating that the instagram conversations had been leaked without the alleged victim's consent, and with one half of the conversation which showed her consenting deleted. This was confirmed by said accuser, who then apologised to Utsav before deleting her account. Utsav also asserted, using screenshots, that the girl purported to be 'much younger' than him was only an year younger at 26 years of age, and that he never harassed her. Chakraborty claimed Kukreja didn't verify any allegations of impropriety sent to her. In response to claims of malicious intent against her, Kukreja penned a statement in Firstpost calling Chaktraborty's claims a, "planned and orchestrated PR-led campaign has been led to malign me Kukreja, the women who spoke up, and the #MeToo movement itself." She said the leaked audio and screenshots of their previous chats were misleading, false, and claimed the audio was doctored. Chakraborty has since called the allegations against him "fabricated."
