Bollywood actress Janhvi Kapoor has opened up in a raw, candid interview about the multiple layers of pain and public scrutiny that have shaped her early adulthood and career, linking her struggles to her mother Sridevi’s sudden death, the fallout from her debut film Dhadak, an invasive paparazzi culture, and a disturbing incident involving her morphed image on a porn site.
After losing Sridevi and the pressure of Dhadak
Janhvi’s entry into Hindi cinema in 2018 with Dhadak came just months after the tragic, unexpected death of her mother, iconic actress Sridevi, in Dubai. She has said that she had been emotionally dependent on Sridevi for validation, and her mother’s loss left her “adrift,” looking for approval from audiences in a way that turned out to be deeply unrealistic.
In a recent podcast, Janhvi revealed that she slipped into depression after Dhadak released. Though the film was a commercial success and many people now recall it as a strong debut, she remembers only the criticism and the feeling that she “sucked” and that “people hate me.” She told interviewer Raj Shamani that she thought her career was over (“pack‑up ho gaya”) and that she had failed publicly, a sense of shame that lingered long after the film’s box‑office figures were reported.
Sridevi’s death, media feeding frenzy and the homewrecker label
Her mother’s passing itself became a morbid public spectacle, with Janhvi describing how reporters turned her grief into “content,” dissecting whether she smiled too soon or seemed too quiet after the tragedy. She has also spoken about the “homewrecker” narrative that once surrounded her father Boney Kapoor and Sridevi, noting how that label haunted her family even though she was never responsible for it.
The combination of mourning, living under an intense media microscope, and entering the film world under the shadow of a superstar mother made adolescence and early adulthood incredibly heavy for her, she said. The expectation that she automatically “be like Sridevi” while simultaneously being scrutinised for every flaw created a pressure cooker that she admits she was not emotionally equipped to handle.
The porn‑site morphed‑image shock at age 15
In another deeply personal revelation, Janhvi recalled that at 15, she came across a morphed image of her on a pornographic website, a moment that still unsettles her. She described how someone took her real photos and artificially merged them with explicit material, creating a fake but believable version of her in an adult‑site context.
She explained that she tried to rationalise it at the time by telling herself, “this is the price of being online,” but now recognises that the image was a violent breach of consent and privacy. The incident resurfaces in her mind even today, especially as AI‑generated deepfakes and fake visuals of her keep circulating, adding to her sense of vulnerability and distrust toward the digital ecosystem.
Paparazzi, “zoom‑in” culture and body‑shaming
Janhvi has also taken a strong stand against the way paparazzi operate in Bollywood, calling out the non‑consensual, sexual‑gaze‑driven way they photograph actresses. She has described asking photographers to stop taking pictures from behind her, saying she is “not comfortable” with people being able to see so much of her body in that way, yet still seeing them try to zoom in on her legs, back, and other body parts.
She has condemned the “zoom‑in” culture where photographers fixate on tiny body parts and angles instead of respecting her autonomy, arguing that such images are not consensual and contribute to the over‑sexualisation of women in public life. In effect, she links the paparazzi’s gaze to the same kind of violation she felt when she saw her morphed image online: a repeated stripping away of control over her own image and her own narrative.
Putting the pieces together
For Janhvi, these experiences who she is after Sridevi’s death, how she felt after Dhadak, the porn‑site morphed image, and the paparazzi treatment are not separate incidents but facets of a single, layered story. She has described feeling “cynical” about people and the media because of the way her grief, her body, and her career have all been turned into entertainment for others.
At the same time, she has framed her honesty about these struggles as a way of fighting back: using her platform to speak about mental health, consent, and the toxic sides of fame so that young fans do not feel so alone when they face similar pressures. In doing so, she is trying to reshape her narrative from that of a “depressed, hating‑herself” debutant into a woman who owns her pain, calls out exploitation, and slowly rebuilds self‑worth on her own terms.
-Samuthiran
