The '100 Times' Proposal: Inside the Vijay-Rashmika Controversy and Divorce Rumours

It took one episode of a chat show to turn a marriage story into a full-blown internet trial. When Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna sat on the Koffee With Karan Season 9 couch as newlyweds, Vijay told the story of how their marriage talks unfolded — and one line, about Rashmika asking him "a hundred times", set off a wave of anger that is still rolling. Within days, that anger had mutated into something else entirely: viral posts claiming the couple had unfollowed each other on Instagram and were heading for divorce. This article unpacks what was actually said on the show, why viewers reacted the way they did, and why the divorce rumours fall apart the moment you look at the facts.

Quick answers first

The spark: what actually happened on Koffee With Karan 9

The ninth and final season of Koffee With Karan kicked off on October 14, and its second episode, which aired on October 21, featured Vijay and Rashmika as a married couple for the first time on the show. It was Rashmika's first time on the couch, while Vijay was returning after his Season 7 appearance with Ananya Panday. Host Karan Johar introduced them as a "blockbuster couple" and went straight to the proposal question — and that is where the trouble started.

When Karan asked whether Vijay had proposed, Rashmika shook her head. Vijay then told the story his way: she was the one who first raised marriage. "She said let's get married," he said, recalling a conversation at an airport while returning from a holiday. His reply, as he told it, was: "Okay, you ask me a hundred times." Karan turned to Rashmika in disbelief — "You asked him a hundred times?" — and she confirmed it in her own words: "I asked him for an entire year." Other reports of the episode put it even more plainly: she asked him every single day for twelve months until he said yes.

Vijay did try to explain himself on the show, and his explanation matters for a fair reading. He said he had always talked about love "with disrespect and disbelief" in past interviews, which he now called immature, and that for years he was so clouded by ambition that anything not serving his career, money and growth felt like a distraction he needed to cut off. The "100 times" condition, he said, was him testing the relationship — and himself. "I was testing myself. I was testing the relationship," he said, adding that "now I know nothing can happen." His feelings, he explained, grew from fondness into dependence: "I need her around because my day feels better. My meals feel better when we are sharing them. I sleep incredibly well when she is with me. Then I realised I want to be married to this woman." He also said, with a smile, that women know much earlier what they want: "They are more mature and smarter." And when the room laughed at the story, he added, "I'm not an a**hole."

The rest of the episode was lighter. In the rapid-fire round, Rashmika picked Allu Arjun over Ranbir Kapoor as a favourite co-star, and when Vijay was asked which actress he shares the best chemistry with, Rashmika answered for him: "Nobody." Vijay's joke about married life — "Rule no. 101 of marriage: Agree with the wife" — landed fine. But the proposal story did not, and the reason is in how it sounded outside the room: a husband telling the world that his wife had to ask, and ask, and ask.

Some background helps here too. Vijay and Rashmika first worked together in Geetha Govindam (2018) and again in Dear Comrade (2019), and spent years dodging relationship questions while keeping their personal lives largely private. They married on February 26, 2026, in a private ceremony in Udaipur that fans call "The Wedding of VIROSH", with ceremonies honouring both Telugu and Kodava traditions. After the wedding they resumed shooting for Ranabaali, their period action drama directed by Rahul Sankrityan, which released in theatres on October 16. So the Koffee With Karan appearance was not a random booking — it was the couple's first big joint appearance as newlyweds, promoting their film and their marriage at the same time. That is also why the reaction stung: the story they told about how they got married became the story everyone talked about instead.

The backlash: why the internet called Vijay a "walking red flag"

The backlash did not wait for the full episode. The promo alone was enough. Viewers who heard the "100 times" line read it not as a cute anecdote but as a husband framing his wife as someone who had to chase him for commitment — and then bragging about it on television. The core complaint, repeated across hundreds of posts, was simple: even if the story is true, why tell it this way, in public, at her expense?

One post that travelled everywhere put it bluntly: "Vijay Devernkonda is a walking red flag. Imagine humiliating your partner in front of whole world. Lol Rashmika deserves better." That post, from Akriti (@teawithharshi) on October 21, became the shorthand for the whole backlash. Another widely shared post took the same line further: "Vijay asked Rashmika to beg him 100 times before he agreed to marry her, and now he's sitting on television, proudly bragging about it. This is not love. This is humiliation. May this kind of pathetic, ego-driven love stay away from me." A third phrase went viral on its own: "Rashmika loves Vijay, Vijay also loves Vijay."

Underneath the slogans sat a sharper debate about power. Rashmika is one of the most successful actresses working today, at the peak of her career, and many viewers felt the story flipped the dynamic — a hugely successful woman shown as having to plead with a reluctant partner who seemed nonchalant about the whole thing. Critics argued that presenting himself as the reluctant partner who eventually granted a favour demeaned a star at the peak of her career, and some commentators framed the comments as ego-driven and patriarchal: a man who needed to be asked a hundred times before he considered his partner's wish worth granting. Others went further, calling him narcissistic and a "red flag", with one user joking that Ranbir Kapoor had officially lost his crown to Vijay.

The comparisons came thick and fast. Some viewers compared the couple unfavourably to Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh's earlier appearance on the show, calling Vijay and Rashmika a "third copy" of that couple. Others called them the "South Indian version of Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt", or even the "Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco of Tollywood". Critics also picked up a wedding invitation detail, alleging that Vijay's name was printed prominently while Rashmika's appeared in small font in brackets — an allegation about the invitation, not a confirmed fact, but one more log on the fire. To be fair to the other side, not everyone joined in: some viewers defended the couple and said the backlash was unwarranted, arguing that a private joke between a married couple was being read in the worst possible light. But the dominant mood was clear, and it was not kind to Vijay.

The "unfollowing" rumour: fact-checking the divorce claims

Here is where a backlash turned into something false. Days after the episode, viral posts began claiming that Rashmika and Vijay had unfollowed each other on Instagram, and that a divorce was on the cards. One viral post put it as a shock announcement: "SHOCKING! Rashmika Mandanna and Vijay Deverakonda have unfollowed each other on Instagram. What could be the real reason behind this? Rumours suggest that Rashmika Mandanna and Vijay Deverakonda may be facing some issues in their relationship." The Free Press Journal summed up the mood in its headline: "Another divorce loading?"

The claim falls apart on one number: zero. Vijay Deverakonda's Instagram following count stands at zero. He follows no one on the platform — not Rashmika, not anyone. Rashmika, meanwhile, continues to follow him. That is what the Free Press Journal, ABP Live and Dailyhunt all found when they checked both profiles, and it is exactly what the feature image above shows: Vijay at 23.1 million followers with zero following, Rashmika at 51.1 million followers and 349 following. A man who follows nobody cannot have "unfollowed" his wife in a row — there was no follow to remove. Other users made the same point in the replies: some noted that the two may never have followed each other in the first place, and others cautioned that unfollowing, even if it happened, does not automatically mean trouble.

The zero count is also not new. Reports from as far back as April 2026 noted that Vijay did not follow Rashmika — or anyone — on Instagram, while Rashmika followed him and the two continued to share public moments. Some reports suggest his account may be managed by his team, and he has continued to post affectionate messages and pictures of Rashmika on his own feed. Put together, the picture is the opposite of a split: a standing zero-following habit, misread in the middle of a backlash, plus a wife who still follows him, plus no statement from either actor suggesting any trouble. Social media echo chambers did the rest — a misunderstood number, combined with public anger at Vijay's comments, hardened into a false story that thousands accepted as truth.

Our verdict: the criticism is real, the divorce rumour is not

Let us separate the two things the internet has glued together. The criticism of Vijay's comments is a genuine public debate, and it is fair to have it. Telling a story on national television in which your wife had to ask you a hundred times before you agreed to marry her was always going to land badly with viewers who heard a successful woman being framed as the one who chased commitment. Whether Vijay meant it as a joke about testing a relationship, as he explained, or whether it revealed something deeper about how he sees the partnership, is a conversation worth having — and it is one the couple will have to live with every time the clip resurfaces.

But the divorce rumours are a different matter, and they are baseless. There is no evidence of a split: no statement, no confirmed unfollow, and an Instagram record that actually contradicts the claim rather than supporting it. What happened is a familiar internet pattern — a real moment of criticism jumping, in a few days, to a fully formed story about a marriage ending, built on a number that was misread and a mood that wanted the worst. Rashmika and Vijay married in February, released Ranabaali in October, and are navigating their newlywed phase under heavier scrutiny than most couples ever face. The Koffee With Karan episode gave the internet a debate. It did not give it a divorce.