  The suicide of Indian actor Sushant Singh Rajput in the midst of the COVID-19
lockdown triggered a media frenzy of prime time coverage that lasted several
months and became a political hot button issue. Using data from Twitter,
YouTube, and an archive of debunked misinformation stories, we found two
important patterns. First, that retweet rates on Twitter clearly suggest that
commentators benefited from talking about the case, which got higher engagement
than other topics. Second, that politicians, in particular, were instrumental
in changing the course of the discourse by referring to the case as 'murder',
rather than 'suicide'. In conclusion, we consider the effects of Rajput's
outsider status as a small-town implant in the film industry within the broader
narrative of systemic injustice, as well as the gendered aspects of mob justice
that have taken aim at his former partner in the months since.
