New Delhi: Kiara Advani doesn’t think married actors should have to justify performing intimate scenes on screen. The actor, who faced backlash for her scenes with Yash in Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups, says women have been dealing with this kind of criticism for decades.
Advani was speaking on Wednesday’s episode of Koffee with Karan Season 9, where she appeared alongside her husband, Sidharth Malhotra. Host Karan Johar brought up the backlash she faced after the release of Tabaahi, a song from Toxic, with several people questioning how she could perform intimate scenes after getting married and becoming a mother.
Johar pointed out the double standard, asking why women faced such questions when married male actors could perform similar scenes without their choices being questioned. Yash, too, is married and has two children.
‘It has been happening for decades’
Advani said Malhotra had not been bothered by the controversy and that the two had never even discussed it.
“I actually fed off his energy,” she said. “He had not cared about it. He has never brought it up. We have never spoken about it,” she said.
She also pointed out that female actors had been dealing with this kind of criticism for decades.
“It has been happening now for donkey’s years, for decades. From Aishwarya to so many wonderful actors,” she said.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan faced similar scrutiny for her intimate scenes with Ranbir Kapoor in Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016). At the time, there were even reports claiming that the Bachchan family was unhappy with the scenes.
But Advani said she did not feel the need to defend herself.
“When I was seeing what was going on on the internet, there was a massive reaction of people who had already started calling it out, the hypocrisy, and I really did not feel the need to even justify,” she said.
During the Rapid Fire round, Johar also asked what she would say to people who believed married women shouldn’t perform intimate scenes. Her answer was short: “Grow up.”
(Edited by Maryam Hassan)