Producer and distributor Bharat Patel enjoys several years of goodwill in the Hindi film industry.
In the last couple of years, his company Bholenath Movies has produced notable films like the Akshay Kumar starrer 'Khatta Meetha' and 'Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi' starring Vir Das, Rishi Kapoor, and Paresh Rawal.
He is also one of the leading distributors and has distributed blockbusters like 'Dabangg' in the Gujarat territory.
Though he shares a very good rapport with most people in the industry, he had to go through an unpleasant experience a couple of years back when he was making 'Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi'.
Talking about the unfortunate incident that also gave him a glimpse of Sunny's unprofessional behavior, Patel says, "I had approached Sunny Leone to do a special dance number for his film.
Sunny's husband Daniel Weber, who was also his manager, discussed all the monetary details with me and I agreed to everything he asked for.
According to the deal, Sunny was supposed to be paid a total of 40 lakh for the song - 5 lakh as signing amount, 5 lakh after the look test, 10 lakh during the rehearsals and the remaining 10 lakh during the promotions.
Sunny was paid 5 lakh as the signing amount but after that, when she was called to discuss the dates with the other actors and the other details that needed to be finalized before the shoot, she did not respond to the production team's calls and messages. This happened, despite, me already paying her the signing amount of 5 lakhs."
It has been a couple of years since Bharat Patel has been trying to get in touch Sunny and his team for the reimbursement of the amount paid to her but Sunny has been non-responsive as before. He wonders who will protect the interests of the producers when they face such harassment in the hands of such unprofessional actors.