Do we like Ram Charan?
Our score: 7 out of 10. No harmful words of his own turned up and there's a record of giving, but his biggest recent film drew real complaints and he stayed quiet.
Ram Charan is a Telugu cinema star and the son of Chiranjeevi, one of that industry's biggest names. The sources we could open were mostly about the last few months, so the early-career story is thin here. In 2024 the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne named him guest of honour for his contribution to Indian cinema.
The big recent stoush is Peddi. After it opened in June 2026, critics said it hyper-sexualised Janhvi Kapoor's character, pointing to lingering shots and a forced kiss scene. Director Buchi Babu Sana apologised on X, saying it “was never our intention to objectify or disrespect any female character”, and the makers said they were re-editing the film in cinemas. The report we read doesn't say whether Charan himself commented.
Then came the second wave. Tribal groups in Andhra Pradesh's Manyam and Vizianagaram districts said some dialogue insulted tribal communities and asked for a case under the SC/ST Atrocities Act against the director, the production house and the censor board members. The report says Charan wasn't named in the demand and that the makers hadn't put out a statement on it.
On the harm check, nothing turned up in his own words against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the planet; we found no statement from him on LGBTQ+ issues at all. The company question is a mild one: Peddi's hit song was choreographed by Jani Master, who was booked under the POCSO Act in 2024, arrested and later released on bail. That matter is a case against him, not Charan, and Charan and Janhvi Kapoor have reportedly stayed silent on it.
Politically, he has backed family. In 2019 he was reported to be campaigning for his uncle Pawan Kalyan's Jana Sena party, after applauding its manifesto. That's a family and party-support story rather than a harm one, and we found no hateful campaigning attached to it.
The good stuff is real. In August 2024 he and Chiranjeevi gave Rs 1 crore to the Kerala relief fund for Wayanad landslide victims. He also owns his flops: when he mixed up cricket and football while praising Jasprit Bumrah at a Peddi event, he posted an apology rather than shrugging it off.