Dev Patel Lookalike Contest Video Goes Viral—'Sorry Folks He's Taken'

1 month ago 5

Dev Patel fans flocked to a San Francisco park to watch a contest to pick the actor's lookalike, but there was bad news—the winner is already taken.

Hundreds of people were at the event in Dolores Park at the weekend and they went wild for winner Jaipreet Hundal, 25, who was chosen as the man who most closely resembled the Slumdog Millionaire star. He pocketed $50 and a monkey statue in a nod to Patel's movie Monkey Man, and charmed the crowd as he posed up a storm.

Clips from the event have now gone viral online, showing Hundal looking very like Patel, and people are smitten.

"the winner of today's dev patel lookalike competition in san francisco, ca (sorry folks he's taken)," wrote a user on X, formerly Twitter, alongside two videos from the event. The post has received over 154,000 views.

"He's so pretty!" one person gushed on X, as another asked: "Is he single?!"

"I want him!" quipped another. "That's so good!" said somebody else on the platform, as another admirer posted simply: "Oh my God!"

Newsweek has emailed representatives for Patel for comment.

However, it turns out that Hundal is in a relationship, and it seems that it was his girlfriend who got him thinking he could be a doppelganger for British star Patel and encouraged him to enter the competition.

"My girlfriend hypes me up all the time... she always says I look like Dev Patel or (Bollywood actor) Ranveer Singh," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. "I didn't realize I'd actually win."

The event was the latest in the current craze for celebrity lookalike contests. Others held recently have looked for members of the public who resemble stars such as Harry Styles and Timothee Chalamet.

The Dev Patel competition was organized by friends Sitara Bellam, Tasnim Khandakar and Sahana Rangarajan. The plan was to host a Robert Pattinson lookalike contest, but they said they changed their minds and swapped to Patel because other recent contests tended to focus on white actors.

"I really feel like South Asian actors have always been a little bit marginalized and I think now knowing that Dev Patel can create a crowd this big, this is positive," Khandakar said.

Patel, 34, found fame in 2008 in director Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. He played Jamal Malik, a boy from the slums who ends up becoming a winner on the Indian version of quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

The actor went on to star in movies such as The Last Airbender, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Chappie. In 2016, he starred in hit drama Lion with Nicole Kidman, winning a best supporting actor Bafta and getting nominated for an Oscar for his performance.

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