Bollywood mourns demise of producer Ryan Stephen

Bollywood film producer Ryan Ivan Stephen who bankrolled films like Kiara Advani's 'Indoo Ki Jawani' and Kajol's short film 'Devi', on Saturday passed away after reportedly contracting COVID-19.

Bollywood celebrities like Kiara, Varun Dhawan, Manoj Bajpayee and others took to social media and mourned the loss of the ace producer.

Bajpayee shared filmmaker Suparn S Varma's tweet on his Twitter handle and wrote, "It's so so shocking for all of us who knew this gentle soul. It really can't be true!! I will miss you my friend RYAN."

Suparn had tweeted, "Life is cruel! But you were kind! @ryanmstephen thank you for your compassion in a ruthless world. I'm glad we undertook a journey on a few stories, the joy in writing them was because of you. You leave behind so many who loved you. Cook up a storm my friend. God bless you."

Varun also shared a picture of the producer on his Instagram story and wrote, "Rip Ryan."

A heartbroken Kiara put up a picture of the film producer and captioned it, "Our dearest Ryan gone too soon".

Alia Bhatt also shared a photo of the late producer on her Instagram story and wrote "RIP Ryan," followed by a broken heart emoji.

As per reports Ryan had started his career as a reporter with a film magazine. He worked with publications such as Showtime and Stardust and even as a film consultant on web-portal Mazaa Media over the years.

Ryan later worked as the Programming Head and Head of the Creative Development department at Dharma Productions. He even worked as a production designer on Irrfan Khan's film 'Rog' and eventually joined hands with writer-lyricist Niranjan Iyenger to start his production house, Electric Apples Entertainment.

(ANI)