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Local actor accused of unsolicited sexting, said Facebook 'account was hacked'

Local actor accused of unsolicited sexting, said Facebook 'account was hacked'
G Selvanathan is a freelance artiste who appears on Mediacorp's channel Vasantham.
PHOTO: Facebook/Dev Muthu

Local veteran actor G Selvanathan has been accused by an aspiring actor of sending unwanted sexual messages.

On Tuesday (March 2), Dev Muthu uploaded to Facebook a series of screenshots of his conversations that he claims were with Selvanathan, calling him "sick".

In the conversations shown in the images, Selvanathan — who has appeared on programmes on Vasantham — approached Dev via Facebook on Dec 30 last year with an offer of a role with his company Avant Theatre & Language. The two then continued their conversation on WhatsApp.

On Jan 9, Dev received more Facebook messages from the 53-year-old's account. However, the messages carried a sexual overtone this time, touching on Dev's physique.

Dev ignored the Facebook messages, but continued to receive more of such messages, with some more explicit than others.

On Feb 23 evening, Selvanathan informed Dev via WhatsApp that he had been rejected for the role, to which Dev apologised and expressed his desire to work with him someday.

Later that same night, Dev received another sexual message on Facebook. He replied, thanking the other for the audition opportunity and apologised for not meeting his expectations.

[embed]https://www.facebook.com/muthu.loveschelseafc/posts/3753401598028458[/embed]

The other party, however, responded with comments on the size of Dev's genitals.

When Dev messaged him again on Tuesday via Facebook asking for advice on appearing on Vasantham, he was told to "sleep with people". The other party again commented on his genitals, and also offered to perform a sex act on Dev.

Dev was outraged, and lodged a police report after posting about the exchange online.

Selvanathan denies allegations, says he was hacked

Prior to deactivating his Facebook account, Selvanathan denied sending any inappropriate messages via Facebook, claiming that his account was hacked.

He added that he is currently seeking legal advice.

He also sent a WhatsApp message to Dev, warning him that he would take legal action against him for breaching the Personal Data Protection Act for releasing his company details online.

No influence on casting

In response to the message which suggested Selvananthan was in a position to influence casting decisions on programmes, Mediacorp told AsiaOne: "Mediacorp would like to state categorically that G Selvananthan and his theatre company do not have any influence — direct or indirect — on the casting for any production for Vasantham."

rainercheung@asiaone.com

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