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Actor Naeema Butt addressed filmmaker Sangeeta’s claims she was let go from the upcoming film Mukho due to her behaviour, which included making ‘demands’ of the director.

Butt denied the allegations outright, saying she was unable to do the project due to scheduling conflicts and the ‘demands’ were actually suggestions the director had asked for.

Thanking her supporters — especially Mishi Khan — in an Instagram post on Tuesday, Butt said her suggestions were given “with good intentions for the betterment of the whole project and its quality, because she asked for them too”. She also said she never agreed to join the project because she wasn’t available on the dates it was scheduled to be shot on.

The actor said Sangeeta had handed her an advance payment on their very first meeting and told her it would be rude to return the money to a senior. She said she wasn’t sure she’d take on the project at the time and had returned the amount as soon as she had made her decision.

In an interview with journalist Ambreen Fatima published on Monday, Sangeeta had claimed Butt had accepted payment for a role in her movie Mukho in advance.

“I had cast her initially, but as a director I can’t deal with demanding actors. She started giving me suggestions, ‘Cast him as the hero, cast her, do this and that.’ I said to her, ‘Ma’am, I am sorry, please return my advance’ and she did.”

The director said she had been in show business for 50 years and was in no mood to take advice from a newbie.

Khan took note of the interview and addressed Sangeeta in a video message on Instagram on Tuesday, telling the filmmaker there was a difference in making a suggestion and making a demand.

She said times had changed, so had the industry and any good suggestion should be considered, no matter who it’s coming from.

“To make it a matter of one’s ego and present it like the other person is making demands, I don’t think that is right… Your generation sees people’s suggestions like they’re being ill-mannered or demanding, even though it’s not like that,” Khan said.

She advised Sangeeta to be a little more “flexible”, which would bring some freshness into her work and help to change outdated ideas in the industry.

Butt, for her part, ended her message saying she respects Sangeeta as an industry veteran and wished her the best of luck for Mukho.