A contestant on India’s Got Latent Season 2 has triggered one of the show’s biggest online controversies so far. Sakshi Jha, a teacher and content creator from Bihar, called herself a “man-hater” during her performance and made remarks about wanting to beat her husband after drinking. The judges gave her a unanimous 0 out of 10, making her the first contestant this season to receive a clean sweep of zeroes.

The third episode premiered on Netflix on Friday, July 17, 2026, and clips from Jha’s segment began circulating soon after. The backlash has turned the act into a larger debate about comedy, gender anger and where a public joke stops being edgy and starts sounding like abuse.

What Sakshi Jha said on India's Got Latent Season 2

Jha opened her set by addressing the panel with a line that immediately set the tone. “Hi, I am Sakshi, and I am a man-hater… Basically, I get a kick out of wrecking men’s egos,” she said, according to Hindustan Times.

Her routine then moved into more controversial territory. HT reported that she described her life goal as “pati ko daru pi ke marna hai,” translated in reports as wanting to beat her husband after drinking. She also said her dislike extended to men in her own family, including her father and brother.

When host Samay Raina asked what had led to her strong dislike for men, Jha said her views came from “generational trauma.” The exchange quickly became one of the most discussed parts of the episode, with viewers debating whether the act was an attempt at dark humour, a provocation, or simply a line that should not have been crossed.

A unanimous zero from the panel

The panel did not reward the act. Samay Raina, Tanmay Bhat, Vishal Dadlani, Raghu Ram and Yashraj Mehra all gave Jha zero points. Hindustan Times reported that this made her the first contestant in India’s Got Latent Season 2 to receive zero from every judge.

Jha rated her own performance an 8 out of 10, but the judges and the audience disagreed. Raina later asked the crowd to score her, and the audience also shouted “zero,” according to HT.

That reaction is important. The panel did not just reject the material quietly. The scoring turned the moment into a statement: whatever the intent, jokes about hating men and hitting a future husband did not land as comedy in that room.

The internet reaction split fast

The clip spread quickly across X, Instagram and other platforms. Many viewers criticised Jha’s remarks, arguing that jokes about violence in a relationship should not be normalised, regardless of who says them. Mint reported that several users said the same outrage would have followed if a male contestant had made similar remarks about women.

Others argued that Jha may have been trying to perform sarcasm or exaggeration, but that the delivery failed because the act leaned too heavily on shock value. That is why the debate moved beyond one contestant. It became a wider argument about whether platforms should air such material just because it creates viral clips.

The reaction also showed a familiar pattern in Indian online discourse. Gender-related jokes often turn into instant culture-war debates. In this case, the sharper issue is simpler: anger at patriarchy may be a subject for comedy, but casual talk about domestic violence is harder to defend as just a joke.

Why this episode is different from past Latent rows

India's Got Latent has courted controversy before since its Season 2 premiere on June 20, 2026, when it launched simultaneously on Netflix and YouTube with Alia Bhatt and Sharvari as guest judges for the opening episode, per Wikipedia. But most of those rows involved judges' remarks to contestants, not a contestant's material sparking a unanimous rejection score.

The zero score itself suggests the judges saw a line being crossed, even as Raina's gentler follow-up question, "Who hurt you Sakshi?", suggested discomfort rather than outright condemnation. That gap between the scoring and the tone of the exchange is part of why the clip has kept circulating.

What happens next

Jha has not issued a detailed public apology or clarification as of the latest reports. The show has also not put out a separate statement on the backlash. For now, the controversy is being driven mostly by clips, viewer reactions and entertainment-site coverage.

The judges’ score already made one point clear: the act failed inside the show. The public reaction has taken it further, turning the segment into a debate about platform responsibility, gendered anger and whether shock comedy can hide behind the word “joke” when it talks about harm.

For India’s Got Latent, the question now is whether the show treats this as just another viral moment or as a warning about where its no-filter format can go wrong.