"I was done. I was fed up."
Raghu Ram, the former producer of MTV Roadies, revealed that his mental health and his marriage suffered due to the show.
He said he believed the “show was over” on the day he and his twin brother, Rajiv Lakshman, exited it.
Roadies is a youth-based reality show that was launched on August 15, 2003.
Raghu and Rajiv produced and anchored the show for MTV. They left the show in 2014. The show was hosted by Cyrus Sahukar, Rannvijay, Bani J and Sonu Sood.
Raghu explained the real reason for walking away from the show.
He said: “I was done. I was fed up. I walked away at the peak of it for two reasons.
“One was because MTV wanted to make the show a certain way, which I did not agree with.
“Till 10 seasons, I had pretty much a free hand. But in the 9th-10th seasons, I found myself coming into conflict with MTV, because they wanted a certain populist kind of angle to it.”
Raghu went on to say that Roadies caused his marriage and mental health to suffer.
“The second thing that was happening was, personally, my life was going through a lot of upheavals because of Roadies and because of the surrounding craze.
“My marriage was suffering. Ultimately, I got divorced.
“My mental health, my physical health and everything else was just crazy. I needed to take a step away.
“So I stopped, and I’m glad I did. Not one day have I regretted walking away.”
Raghu Ram had been married to actress Sugandha Garg. However, the couple got divorced in 2016.
On whether he would return to Roadies, Raghu Ram emphatically stated:
“No, not going to happen. We were asked, but no, I don’t want to. I haven’t seen Roadies ever since I left.”
“It is not ‘that’ Roadies now. It is a completely different show with the name Roadies on it.
“The format can be compared more to The Voice than to the previous Roadies. When Rajiv and I walked away that day, that show was over. That particular format was over.”
After Raghu and Rajiv left, Rannvijay Singha carried the show forward. But he has since left the MTV show.
On the last season of Roadies, Prince Narula, Rhea Chakraborty and Gautam Gulati were seen as judges, while Sonu Sood posed as the super judge.
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