Singer Sonu Nigam slams IIFA 2025 for not nominating him

The legendary singer took to social media to criticize the IIFA 2025 Best Playback Singer Male category nominations.

Singer Sonu Nigam has been known for winning hearts with every song of his career for decades. Last year, he won hearts with Mere Dholna 3.O from Bhool Bhulaiyaa. However, the singer recently took to social media to slam IIFA 2025 for not nominating him for the massive hit song.

Sonu Nigam takes a dig at IIFA 2025 nominations for the Best Playback Singer Male category.

The legendary Bollywood singer slammed the awards for not nominating him in the Best Playback Singer Male category for his song, Mere Dholna 3.O from the film Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3. The 25th edition of IIFA took place on March 8 and 9 in Jaipur. Days after the event, the singer shared a post expressing his disappointment, taking a dig at IIFA for not nominating him.

What did Sonu Nigan write about IIFA playback singer male nominations?

On Tuesday, Sonu Nigam took to Instagram and shared a screenshot of this year’s nominees for the Best Male Playback Singer at IIFA 2025. He added his song, Mere Dholna 3.0, with a screenshot and captioned it, “Thank you, IIFA. After all, you were answerable to the Rajasthan bureaucracy.” While Shreya Ghoshal won Best Female Playback Singer for the same song Sonu expected a nomination, Jubin Nautiyal won the Best Male Playback Singer title for Dua from Article 370.

Fans and industry colleagues react to the post.

Amaal Malik wrote, “Such is the world that we live in… Mazaak banake rakh diya hai (It has become a mockery).” Jaan Kumar Sanu, son of Kumar Sanu, wrote, “Dada, you are above these awards, to be honest. We all love you.” One fan wrote, “Fake awards go to autotune. You are above awards.” Another wrote, “You’re an award to them and to us… that we can hear you! Only a few truly value the gift we get from God. Likewise, we got you from Him! You’re an award yourself, sir.”

For the unversed, Sonu Nigam performed at the Rising Rajasthan event last December, where Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma and several political figures left the concert midway. The singer then expressed disappointment on social media. He wrote, “In the middle of the show, I saw that the CM and the rest of the people left. As soon as they left, all the delegates also left. I have a request to all politicians: if you do not respect your artists, then what will people outside do? If you have to leave, then do not come. Or leave before the show starts. Leaving in the middle of an artist’s performance is very disrespectful. This is an insult to Saraswati.”