Akshay Kumar’s co-star from the movie Saugandh, Shanthipriya, has recently opened up on the practise of racism in Bollywood. In an interview with NBT.com, she spoke about the rejection that she had to face in Bollywood because of her dusky skin tone. She went on to revealing the humiliation that she had to face in the 90’s and her sister, Bhanupriya was also not accepted by the industry for her skin tone.
Shanthipriya recalled her days in Bollywood and said that “Today, I am proud of myself but earlier I used to be humiliated in front of the entire crew. I was told that my makeup would not match with the hero and both of us looked different. Then the entire process would be redone. It was very embarrassing. Every day before going to shoot I would get scared as to how people would react to seeing me. There also came a time when I used to spend more time hiding my skin colour rather than improvising on the script or other things.”
The Saugandh actress had to face embarrassment while shooting and was thrown out of films because of her skin town. Recalling one such event with Akshay Kumar on the sets on Saugandh she said that “My role in the film Ikke Pe Ikka was of a modern girl and the script demanded that I had to wear a short dress. I used to wear skin-coloured stockings and once while shooting, Akshay joked about my knees looking darker than usual. He repeatedly said that there were blood clots in my knees and all the actors and other members of the crew had a good laugh, Akshay is my good friend and I am not complaining here, but I definitely want to tell you that people have to understand how a joke made about someone’s colour can hurt him/her.”
The former actress also raised her voice on favoritism in Bollywood and how it ended the film career of her sister Bhanupriya and herself. There are speculations that Shanthipriya might be seen in Bigg Boss this year.
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