Celebrities and controversies are never far apart! Deepika, is now in the eye of a storm as her Levi’s advertisement – which make her look fetching – has become a bone of contention!

Sooni Taraporevala director of Yeh Ballet, a Netflix original film released last year has accused the Levi’s advertisement makers of plagiarism. Her basic allegation is that the set showcased in the advertisement is identical to the one she used in her film Yeh Ballet.

Interestingly, the production designer for the ad film, Rupin Suchak, has even agreed to it. Taking to Instagram, Taraporevala called out the “copycat culture in India” and also the makers who have blatantly plagiarised the team's work.

Her long post, Taraporevala shared on Instagram she revealed how the whole thing was brought to her notice, and referred to it as an “intellectual theft”.

“A couple of days ago @cindy_jourdain brought this @levis_in ad to my attention. I was shocked to see our Yeh Ballet dance studio set in this ad, because it was conceptualised & created out of a derelict space by Shailaja Sharma @shalzoid (our PD) from scratch and dismantled after our shoot. No such dance studio exists in Mumbai which is why we built it. Basically, @nadiaeye (the director of this ad) saw Yeh Ballet and decided to plagiarize our set down to the very last detail (swipe for screenshot). Would Levi’s and the director ever think of doing that in the west without permission/acknowledgment, and passing it off as their own creative work? This is not homage this is intellectual theft! It’s SO unfair to our wonderful production designer @shalzoid to have her work ripped off like that (sic),” she wrote.

Talking about the “copycat culture in India”, Sooni added that it must be called out and cancelled. “Copycat culture in India needs to be called out and cancelled. You would think a foreign production company and director would know better. Are you so creatively bankrupt? What were you thinking? PS. contrary to what clickbait news headlines say, this has nothing to do with Deepika Padukone or anyone else in the cast (sic).”

Besides her post, Taraporevala also shared pictures of the set in question from the film. Giving weight to her accusation, she added the screenshot in which designer Rupin Suchak can be seen agreeing to using the dance studio as an inspiration for the new Levi’s advertisement set.

Netizens applauded Taraporevala’s post and branded the act as “shameful”.

Yeh Ballet is produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur and stars Julian Sands, Achintya Bose, Jim Sarbh and Vijay Maurya, among others.