Masaba Gupta Has High Praise for Bipasha Basu
Bipasha Basu’s latest magazine appearance earned an enthusiastic response from Masaba Gupta, but a few words in the designer’s Instagram Story have taken the conversation beyond the photographs themselves.
Sharing images from Bipasha’s Elle India digital cover, Masaba celebrated the actor as a distinctive presence in an industry she believes has become increasingly uniform.
“I am very happy to see Bipasha on a cover. You see, she is the last of the OGs,” Masaba wrote.
Her appreciation was also a criticism of contemporary celebrity aesthetics. “There won't be another Bipasha because everything is a cookie cutter template today,” she added, describing much of what she sees as “boring” and “dull” and saying it “does not inspire one bit of confidence.”
The message could have remained a straightforward endorsement of Bipasha. Instead, Masaba’s comments about the actor’s physique prompted social media users to revisit a much older Bollywood conversation.
‘I Love the Muscle’
Masaba singled out Bipasha’s athletic build, a feature that has been closely associated with the actor’s fitness image for years.
“And @bipashabasu- I love your athletic build. I love the muscle- and I want more thanks to the standard of fitness you set,” she wrote.
Then came the line that drew particular attention: “Too bad if someone doesn't see that as feminine.”
Masaba did not say who she meant by “someone.” She did not name Mrunal Thakur or directly refer to any previous controversy.
That makes an important difference to how the episode should be described. A number of social media users interpreted the wording as a possible reference to Mrunal, but there is no public confirmation from Masaba that this was her intention.
The reason for the connection lies in an old video that had previously brought Mrunal criticism online.
Why Mrunal Thakur Was Pulled Into the Conversation
The clip comes from Mrunal’s television career, when she appeared alongside her Kumkum Bhagya co-star Arjit Taneja.
During a conversation about fitness and preferences in a partner, Mrunal referred to Bipasha while discussing a muscular physique.
“Do you want to marry a girl who is manly with muscles? Go marry Bipasha. Listen, I am far better than Bipasha, ok,” Mrunal said in the old video.
Years later, the footage resurfaced on social media. The description of a muscular woman as “manly” attracted criticism, while Mrunal’s comparison with Bipasha also became part of the backlash.
Masaba’s new Story did not mention that episode. But her decision to praise Bipasha specifically for her muscles, followed immediately by a comment about femininity, was enough for some readers to draw a connection.
That interpretation has since driven much of the discussion around her post.
Mrunal Previously Addressed the Controversy
The resurfaced clip is not a new statement from Mrunal, and her response to the earlier criticism is relevant to the current coverage.
After the video gained renewed attention, Mrunal apologised for her comments. She said the remarks had been made when she was younger and acknowledged that she would express herself differently today.
She also indicated that she had not intended to body-shame Bipasha and reflected on how her understanding of beauty had evolved.
The renewed attention therefore does not amount to a fresh public dispute between Mrunal and Masaba. There has been no confirmed exchange between the two over Masaba’s Instagram Story.
Instead, an older controversy has been pulled back into view because of the language used in a new post.
Why Masaba’s Praise of Bipasha Carries Its Own Context
The speculation around Mrunal risks obscuring the larger point Masaba was making about Bipasha.
For a significant part of her career, Bipasha cultivated a public identity around fitness and physical strength. She released workout programmes, regularly discussed exercise and helped make an athletic female physique more visible within mainstream Hindi cinema.
Masaba’s comments explicitly celebrated that legacy.
Her criticism of “cookie cutter” celebrity imagery also framed Bipasha as part of an earlier generation of stars whose individual appearances were central to their public identities.
There is a more recent dimension to the discussion as well.
Bipasha and her husband, Karan Singh Grover, welcomed their daughter Devi in 2022. The actor has since spoken about the scrutiny surrounding her body after motherhood, including online criticism over her appearance.
Her return to a major magazine cover therefore arrives against a history of both fitness-focused public attention and more recent commentary about how her body changed after pregnancy.
The Difference Between a Dig and an Interpretation
The wording of Masaba’s post explains why Mrunal’s old comments returned to circulation. It does not establish that Masaba was addressing her.
That distinction is particularly important in a story built largely around social media interpretation.
What Masaba said publicly is clear: she praised Bipasha’s athletic build, said she loved her muscles and dismissed the idea that such a physique should be considered unfeminine. What she did not do was identify the person or comments she had in mind.
Until she does, describing the Story as an apparent or possible reference reflects the available evidence more accurately than presenting it as a confirmed feud.
For Bipasha, meanwhile, the attention has returned to something she has represented for much of her career: an approach to fitness in which visible strength was part of the image rather than something to disguise.
