EXCLUSIVE: Sonali Bendre on body shaming during the 90s: I was told ‘She’s not voluptuous enough to be a woman’

Actor Sonali Bendre was one of the biggest stars in the 90s. But did you know that she was also body-shamed back in the day? In an exclusive interview with Bollywood Bubble, Sonali opens up about body shaming and recalls the time during the 90s when she was skinny-shamed and was told that ‘she’s not voluptuous enough to be a woman’.

Sonali told us, “The 90s because being skinny was definitely not the standard of beauty so voluptuousness was the standard of beauty and you were just not a woman enough if you were not voluptuous.”

Sonali Bendre also spoke about how her cancer scars and bald head scared her and how she was afraid to step out. She said, “Having said that, you know which it shouldn’t be and I remember coming back and speaking to Anayata, when she called up and I said ‘I want to do this shoot and I want to do it with this scar showing because I’m scared to show it. The moment I’m scared it’s like I think I’m going to go out only with a wig. I don’t know if I should step out with my then the thing to do was to step out without the wig to step out at all because is this what you’re afraid of, crush it right there. That was the scary part as the bloated face the scar and the baldness and especially when the hair just starts coming, it’s just the most ugly sight on the top of your head. But I did that and I said that the moment you’re scared of something and you’re feeling that ‘no, how can i do this’, i need to go out and do it and you just kill it right there or just crush it then. That was one way of looking at it.”

 

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“Having said that, there are definitely a lot of things that need to change but we’ve also become a bit too sensitive about things now. I think we are losing that balance we needn’t be on that other side where things are going so bad that you can say anything to another woman and body shame her. I know, I do agree that body shaming should not have any part in our society and especially, little girls and the kind of ideas that they’re growing up with or the kind of crazy dieting that people are doing which really affects their health. Though people are forgetting that it’s holistic and health is holistic it’s not just this part that needs to be like this and that part, it’s in the entirety even your mind. It all needs to be balanced but having said that, we are also reaching a stage where as soon as there’s criticism, we are all getting so touchy about it. We have to understand that criticism needs to be taken constructively and sometimes we should, you should be able to criticize in a proper gentle way without being nasty or mean. How are you going to improve if you don’t know that something is not right, you will need to be told that this can be better if you have to accept that and you have to be able to tell that,” the Broken News actor said.

Watch Sonali Bendre in the interview here:

Also read: EXCLUSIVE: Sonali Bendre talks about going bald and wearing wigs during her cancer battle