During a music concert in Bengaluru on 25–26 April 2025, singer Sonu Nigam paused mid-performance after a student shouted “Kannada” aggressively from the audience. Addressing the disruption, Nigam linked the incident to rising intolerance, comparing it to the unrest in Pahalgam (here, here, and here).
Amid this, The Indian Express, The Times of India, and The Economic Times stated that Sonu Nigam criticised BJP MP Tejasvi Surya over his comments on a viral video where a bank employee was called out for not speaking Kannada. Reacting to Surya’s post, Nigam allegedly asked if he would tell Kannada stars not to dub or release their films in Hindi across India, calling him a “language warrior.” Let’s fact-check this in the article.
Claim: In an X post, Sonu Nigam criticised BJP MP Tejasvi Surya, saying Kannada films shouldn’t be dubbed in Hindi or released nationwide.
Fact: Singer Sonu Nigam is not on X (formerly Twitter) and had quit the platform in 2017, citing concerns about freedom of speech. The viral post was made by a namesake account, ‘@SonuNigamSingh’, which belongs to a criminal lawyer from Bihar, not the singer. Sonu Nigam himself clarified this in a 22 May 2025 Instagram post, slamming media outlets for attributing false statements to him. He reiterated, “How many times have I declared I am not on Twitter?” and called it misinformation. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the claim, a Google keyword search led to multiple news reports (here, here, and here) from 2017 stating that singer Sonu Nigam had quit the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). At the time, he cited concerns over the lack of respect for freedom of speech as the reason for leaving.
This raised doubts about the controversy triggered by a May 2025 X post. On reviewing the viral post, we found that the account ‘@SonuNigamSingh’ identifies its owner in the bio as a criminal lawyer from Bihar. An Instagram account with the same handle also featured a different individual, not the singer.
In further investigation, we found an Instagram post (archived) dated 22 May 2025 on singer Sonu Nigam’s official account, where he called out media outlets, particularly The Times of India, for spreading misinformation. He stated: “How many times have I declared I am not on Twitter? Spreading misinformation in my name is only going to poison the minds of people who have loved me so much all these years…” Sonu Nigam also used screenshots of the X posts and wrote on Instagram for basing their news article on his namesake account.
Factly had previously debunked a similar viral claim, which falsely alleged that Sonu Nigam had tweeted about boycotting Bollywood stars’ shows and receiving threatening calls from Bollywood goons.
To sum up, Sonu Nigam did not criticise BJP MP Tejasvi Surya or make any comment on Kannada films in an X post; he is not on the X platform.
