Sunak supporting a bad actor turned religious leader (9)
I believe the answer is:
maharishi
'religious leader' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'sunak supporting a bad actor turned' is the wordplay.
'sunak' becomes 'rishi' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'supporting' says to put letters next to each other (in a down clue, some letters go below others).
'bad actor' becomes 'ham' (a ham is someone who overacts).
'turned' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'a'+'ham'='aham'
'aham' in reverse letter order is 'maha'.
'rishi' put after 'maha' is 'MAHARISHI'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for maharishi that I've seen before include "Hindu sage and scholar" , "Indian sage" , "Teacher of Hindu mysticism" , "Hindu spiritual leader" , "Hindu instructor" .)
