Bullsh*t: Author Manu Joseph, Vijay’s Former Classmate, Slams CM’s ‘Poor Childhood’ Claim

Author-screenwriter Manu Joseph has come out strongly against Tamil Nadu’s new Chief Minister Joseph Vijay, criticising his speech claiming to be growing up poor. Joseph took to X to reveal that the actor turned politician was his classmate in third standard at Loyola school in Chennai, and commented that Vijay’s father “...was a filmmaker who set up his son for a career in films. It is possible that like most filmmakers his father may have had periods of financial strife but that's not the same as Tamil-grade poverty.”

“A lot of affluent boys confuse being broke with poverty. Two very different things,” the author wrote, adding, “The great bulls of our era are rags-to-riches stories.”

In his first speech as Tamil Nadu chief minister, Vijay said that he grew up in poverty, and that he even knows what hunger is. It's bullshit because he was my classmate in the third standard in Loyola School.
His father was a filmmaker who set up his son for a career in films.…

— Manu Joseph (@manujosephsan) May 11, 2026

During his maiden speech as the Tamil Nadu chief minister on Sunday, the TVK chief had said that he was well aware about poverty and hunger as he was born as the son of an ordinary assistant film director who aspired to win in cinema by working hard.

Vijay’s beginning in cinema had been as a child artist in his father’s 1984 action crime film Vetri. He continued to be a child actor in many more movies, before getting his debut as a lead actor at the age of 18, with the 1992 action film Naalaiya Theerpu. The movie was a box-office disaster. Vijay’s first break was Senthoorapandi, a 1993 romantic-action, directed by his father. He went on to play lead roles in his father's directorial ventures such as Rasigan (1994), Deva (1995) and Vishnu (1995). Most of those films were successful commercially.