The MeToo Movement in India is heating up. As the former Indian actress Aditi Rao reveals her story about sexual harassment in the Bollywood industry. She is latest actress who shared her MeToo experience from the Bollywood film industry. She said in a recent interview, “I think that everybody should do what they need to do, when they think it is right. That is what empowering a person is. This #MeToo movement is turning that on its head and taking that power away by putting these conditions and saying, ‘You must speak. If you don’t, that means you are giving in.”
Aditi spoke her incident in Bollywood, she said, ‘I did lose work and I cried about it. I didn’t regret it but I cried about it because I felt so upset that this was true and this is how girls are treated. I was like, how dare someone speak to me like that! For about eight months [after the incident] I didn’t get work, but I feel that decision made me stronger in my intention about the kind of work I wanted to do,” she said
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Aditi said that though her experience with sexual harassment in the film industry wasn’t as severe as the accounts of other women, it still made her lose work for eight months. “I remember when I started; I was extra-conscious because I came from a protected background. I didn’t know that the rumors were true, that things like this did happen. And honestly, I have not had such a bad time. I had one incident which actually didn’t harm me very much. But yes, I did lose work because I was given a choice – it’s either this or this. For me, it was a no-brainer. I had to walk away,” she said. Aditi said the incident made her hopeless about finding work again.
She further said that,” With positive support from her team, she found work again after eight months. Now, Aditi says that victims of harassment should be allowed to set their own pace. “I think you should speak about something only when you are ready. And when you don’t talk about it, people are like, ‘Oh, they were paid off’ or ‘oh, they were silenced,” she said.
