Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta, who has been away from the industry for eight years now, made headlines after opening about getting sexually harassed on the sets of a film. The former Miss India took up the incident that happened 10 years ago and bared it all.
In an interview to Zoom TV, the 34-year-old actor accused Bollywood actor Nana Patekar of harassing her on the sets of Horn OK Please. Dutta claimed the actor insisted on adding an intimate dance sequence with her, which wasn’t mentioned in her contract.
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“I want to take names – actor Nana Patekar, producer Sami Siddiqui, director Rakesh Sarang, and choreographer Ganesh Acharya. When Nana Patekar misbehaved with me, he voiced out that he would do an intimate step with me as well in the song, which wasn’t mentioned in my contract. It was supposed to be a solo sequence of mine,” the actress said.
According to Tanushree, she was replaced by Rakhi Sawant in the film after she complained.
She went on to reveal that Nana Patekar had always been disrespectful towards women in the industry and everyone was aware of it.
“When I had complained about the same to the producer-director and told them to ask him (Nana Patekar) to stay away from me, they didn’t pay heed. Just because I was new to the film industry, whether or not it was required, let’s do an intimate scene with her,” she added.
On Tuesday, in an interview, the Dhol actress spoke to News 18 about the #MeToo movement and said such a revolution would never reach Bollywood unless people took action.
Tanushree believes A-list actors like Akshay Kumar and Rajnikanth first needed to boycott actors like Nana Patekar to bring a change. “Akshay Kumar has made a few films with Nana Patekar in last eight years and Rajinikanth also recently worked with him (in Kaala)… If such big stars will keep working with these culprits then there’s no hope for any movement to happen,” Dutta said.
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“Everyone has gossiped about this but they’ve never spoken. People with this kind of character speak like this against the kind of character that I have because they say she does glamourous roles so must be glamorous and all. Behind the back, they are so dirty. When you are in the industry you hear so many stories about these actors. But these things never take surface because they are PR packaged very well. They will give some money to some poor farmers. How much they do and how much they don’t know, no one knows. But all this is just for show,” she added.
It may be recalled that Tanushree Dutta had first spoken about the incident in 2008. Back then Nana Patekar refuted the claims made by the actress in a press conference and said, “Tanushree is my daughter’s age and I have no clues about what made her say such things about me. I have been a part of this film industry since the last 35 years and haven’t had anyone saying such things about me ever.”