Inside Bollywood’s Toxic Paparazzi Culture: The Vulgar Gaze, PR Pressure and Death of Celebrity Privacy

A sea of paparazzi is stationed outside a popular Mumbai venue. The occasion is a "success party" for something — a film, a song, or simply a milestone of Instagram followers, as it always is in this city. A car crawls through the crowd. A few veteran photographers lean in slightly to see who is arriving; it’s a prominent female star, someone whose presence guarantees immediate online traction.

But while the old guard waits for her to step out onto the designated carpet, a chaotic rush of newer operators swarms the vehicle. They instantly thrust their cameras forward, deliberately angling their lenses to capture a moment when the actor is visibly uncomfortable being filmed: the awkward, vulnerable transition of exiting a car seat. A polite request for a few seconds to step out and adjust her dress is ignored. Flashes fire instantly. For those who missed the frame, there is a wink and a smirk from the guys who "got it."

These intrusive, wardrobe-focused visuals have become an algorithmic staple on Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. While accidental frames were clicked in the past just as voyeuristically, today there is an unprecedented solidarity and brashness with which these "new paps" operate — virtually fearless and entirely unbothered by repercussions.

"This culture completely saddens me," says veteran photographer Varinder Chawla, who operates a team of 12 to 13 photographers under his agency. "Who gets to be a pap today? Anyone who gets access to WhatsApp tip-off groups and owns a decent smartphone. Stars do get genuinely angry or hurt, but often their teams immediately step in to quiet them down. 'Let it go, you will need to work with these same paps tomorrow.' That's sad, because some are simply tolerating this growing filth because they feel stuck."

Over the past month, this author shadowed the paparazzi — ranging from seasoned photojournalists to absolute newcomers — to observe the mechanics of modern field coverage. This meant tracking trailer launches, film screenings, and the chaotic "road carpets" (a cynical term coined by the photographers to mock how publicists force them onto active, traffic-heavy roads to cover private parties).

What emerged was a stark generational divide: a frantic underbelly where untrained operators nudge each other to capture compromised angles of female actors and shout disrespectfully at anyone breaking their line of sight, while the old guard watches on, completely frustrated by what their trade has devolved into.

A Growing Culture of Entitlement

This year alone, the paparazzi has dominated the headlines multiple times for highly objectionable behaviour. A rowdy group of photographers openly mocked and body-shamed Mashable India host Siddharth Aalambayan for apparently blocking their frames while he was interviewing actors Ayushmann Khurrana, Rakul Preet Singh, and Sara Ali Khan. The incident sparked widespread criticism online, not just for the photographers' hostility, but for the three actors themselves, who drew flak for failing to step in while the host was being shouted at in front of them.

Shortly after, a chaotic crowd deeply angered superstar Salman Khan. Photographers not only flouted his privacy during a sensitive visit to a hospital but also actively disrespected the medical facility, aggressively calling out to the superstar by his film titles.

Alongside these high-profile altercations remains the routine influx of voyeuristic "guess who" shots, where rogue pages post objectifying close-ups of female celebrities from behind. At a recent event in Mumbai, actor Neha Dhupia confronted some paps, demanding that they stop the highly intrusive practice of taking "back shots", where photographers film female celebrities from behind at objectifying angles as they walk away.

Another recent flashpoint involved a distasteful post targeting Sara Tendulkar, who explicitly called out the pap, calling him "disgusting" and posting on her Instagram, "This is not journalism. Leave us alone."

"I actually texted Sara Tendulkar recently regarding someone she referred to as a paparazzi photographer," Chawla reveals. "I told her directly, 'He is not a pap.' That guy doesn’t even go out on the field; he simply lifts content from real photographers or buys it, slaps his own text on it, and posts it on his social media handle."

Pinpointing a concrete number of functioning paparazzi in the current ecosystem is nearly impossible because there is no formal registration or licensing system. However, veterans have watched the explosion of numbers with growing alarm. During the COVID-19 lockdown, a celebrity requested an official list of active photographers to provide financial aid, and veteran photographer Yogen Shah mapped the entire field at roughly 60 to 70 professionals.

"Cut to recently: a PR professional wanted to do some gifting for Diwali and I learnt that the count was over 200!" Shah reveals. "In just three years, the community multiplied by three. At this rate, it will double within a year and hit 400 people. Why? Because of two factors: creating a fake narrative, and YouTube and Facebook being monetised."

The Post-Pandemic Boom

While there is no single origin story for this crisis, Shah notes that the shift can be traced back to the immediate post-pandemic era. As public events resumed, reality television contestants and rising digital influencers became increasingly invested in orchestrating paparazzi appearances. This, Shah explains, is where the ground rules fundamentally changed.

"When they used to win or get evicted and come out, videos of them would perform incredibly well on YouTube and Facebook," Shah says. "The revenue that came from YouTube over just those two months of a show's finale was equal to a regular person's half-yearly remuneration. It was a massive amount of money. Because of this influx, people who were sitting at home heard about this and started flooding the field armed with nothing but a mobile phone. Today, every single person is monetising videos."

The PR-Paparazzi Economy

Every paparazzo that The Hollywood Reporter India spoke to emphasised the crushing "PR pressure" that has empowered these unchecked, new entrants. The core of the issue lies in the sheer multiplication of unverified digital handles and platforms, driven primarily by a specific, unregulated section of the PR machinery: independent, smaller publicists.

"Previously, there were four or five established, respectful agencies, but today, there are countless individual publicists, and not all of them are credible," a veteran paparazzi photographer says on conditions of anonymity. "Some former entertainment reporters have turned into PR agents simply by signing two actors or a couple of social media influencers."

"To please their clients, some PRs offer budget packages that guarantee 'paparazzi coverage,'" Chawla adds. "They bypass established agencies and hire freelance paps or former employees of ours at incredibly cheap rates— sometimes just ₹500 per post — to spam their clients' pictures. This makes the client feel special, giving them the illusion that the entire world is actively covering them."

What this triggered was a toxic, systemic chain reaction. Armed with an unregulated, independent income stream, freelance creators began pushing back against agency control, questioning why they should adhere to a strict corporate structure when they could make quick money on their own terms.

"They go and tell their friends how easy it is to make ₹500 per post, encouraging them to start an arbitrary social page and accompany them to industry events, especially those where entry is easy or security is lax," Shah says.

Chawla, too, calls out the trend. "This has birthed an entire network of 'fraud' paps. These are not fans, nor are they legitimate media; this is an entire ecosystem of people who are completely uneducated in professional ethics."

When Access Becomes Leverage

In some extreme cases, a prominent paparazzi head tells THR India, the dynamic has even escalated into outright blackmail.

"First, these new paps were empowered by PR agencies to get their lower-tier clients clicked, and then they grew their own digital numbers. Now, if an agency stops paying them their monthly retainer, they intentionally post nasty videos and texts about their clients to get back at them, effectively forcing them to pay up so they change their tunes."

Yet, despite the clear volatility, certain PR teams continue to invite these paps to high-profile events and movie screenings simply to fill up the room, crowd the entry gates, and artificially impress their clients with sheer numbers, completely failing to vet who is actually gaining physical access to these spaces.

Shah backs this claim, noting that because this new crowd lacks even foundational journalism training, they operate with highly problematic language and a deeply inappropriate gaze when filming celebrities. "Sometimes I wonder if these guys even have families at home, because their behaviour on the field is absolutely shameless."

The Death of Self-Regulation

This modern "rowdiness" stands in sharp contrast to an experience Shah recalls from nearly two decades ago. At a fashion event, an overzealous photographer snapped an inappropriate shot of an actor while she was changing her costume backstage. The photographer was not only given a severe hearing by the actor and his own peers on the spot, but he was completely "sidelined" for his disgraceful behaviour. Today, that collective enforcement is gone.

Can The Industry Draw The Line Again?

So, what stand is the industry taking now? For legacy photographers, the cleanup begins at home. A prominent paparazzi head, ranked among the top most agencies in the Hindi film industry, states he has strictly forbidden his team from passing comments on celebrities or filming objectifying "back shots."

For others, the structural solution is straightforward: there are only five to six core paparazzi teams and established digital portals operating in Mumbai. The film fraternity should exclusively invite the verified, on-payroll employees of those specific organisations. When access is restricted to legitimate outlets, a clear line of corporate accountability is established if anything goes wrong.

"The day these fake paps are denied entry to private parties and promotional events is the day they will start worrying," an agency head notes. "Once you remove the 'perks' — like getting free entry into an exclusive party — the entire crowd of fraudulent paps will naturally weed themselves out. The PR machinery and the legitimate media need to work together to enforce this boundary."

For agency owners like Chawla, maintaining that internal boundary requires constant discipline. "My boys handle our entire tracking and canvassing from Bandra to the Andheri Airport, and the majority of them are loyal staff who have been working ethically under my banner for over 12 years. I maintain zero tolerance for unprofessionalism. For instance, I mandated that my employees wear company-branded T-shirts while on the field to ensure clear identification and professional behaviour. One guy— a long-time collaborator — decided to stop wearing it and began influencing other staff members to follow suit. I fired him immediately."

"Just last month, I explicitly warned my entire team that their salaries would be cut if they used improper language on the field or posted vulgar visuals on our handles," Chawla states. "I told them very clearly: I have no qualms about replacing them with fresh, passionate individuals who respect the boundaries of this job, just the way they used to when they first started. If they cross lines, they know they are completely answerable to me, and I keep archived videos of internal staff apologising for past mistakes as a reminder of that accountability."