Poonam Pandey Death Hoax: Pharma giant MSD breaks ties with agency involved in actress' publicity stunt

Poonam Pandey’s supposed well-intentioned initiative has backfired and how! The actress faked her death to create awareness about cervical cancer that led to massive social media backlash. And amid the drama that unfolded, pharma giant MSD has cut all ties with Schbang, the agency involved in the publicity stunt along with Hauterfly.

How it started?

The portal Hauterrfly teamed up with the actress to spread awareness about cervical cancer as they felt people were not talking enough about the disease. Condolences began pouring on social media and fans were shocked as they found the actress hale and hearty merely few days ago.

The polarizing reveal

Pandey then shared a video on her Instagram account and spilled the news she was alive and this was a campaign to spread awareness about the aforementioned disease.

In the video, Poonam Pandey said, “I’m alive. I didn’t die because of Cervical Cancer. Unfortunately, I cannot say that about hundreds and thousands of women who have lost their lives because of Cervical Cancer. It is not because they couldn’t do anything about it, because they had no idea what to do about it. I am here to tell you that unlike other cancers, Cervical Cancer is preventable. All you have to do is you have to get your tests done and you have to get HPV vaccine. We can do all this and more. To make sure there is no more loss to this disease.”

The reactions

Barring a handful of reactions that were in favour, particularly by Ram Gopal Varma, most of the celebrities and fans slammed the actress for her insensitivity and desperate measures to create a discourse.

“Ridiculous”, “disgraceful” and “a new low” is how internet users and several celebrities reacted to actor-model Poonam Pandey’s reappearance on social media a day after her team claimed that she died from cervical cancer.