Janhvi Kapoor says she turned ‘cynical’ after mom Sridevi’s death: ‘Imagine losing your mother and it’s entertainment for half the nation’

Janhvi further admitted that she now wishes to have had control over her first public impression, which she feels should have been through her debut film and not her personal life. She explained that the exposure to paparazzi during her teenage years shaped the public’s perception of her as privileged and took away from her real personality.

“The problem was that they had seen me growing up — which school I went to, if I was going to a concert with my friends, if I was holding my mom’s hand and going to the airport and really excited that I finally got to wear her heels. That really fed into this perception of extreme privilege that, I think, alienated the audience from me a little bit. But once you’re already exposed, it takes a lot to pull back,” she said.

While people often comment on Janhvi’s privilege, they also empathise with her for losing her mother when she was just 20 years old. When asked about receiving sympathy from the audience, however, she refuted it, saying, “Where is this empathy? I want to see some of this empathy.”

Janhvi explained that she and Khushi always had a hard exterior and never let the public see their deep grief over losing their mom. “My sister and I have never let them see the cracks, and because of this, people have felt they can throw mud at us, that we are not really human. That took empathy and sympathy completely out of the question.”

She admitted that losing her mother could have made them “degenerates” and also made her “cynical.” She said, “I don’t think anyone can understand what we went through. The loss is one thing but the damage that came after really made me cynical about human nature.”

Recalling how she was hounded by paparazzi during that period and scrutinised for her every reaction, Janhvi said, “I would be hounded by the media and if I smiled to promote my film, I was criticised for seeming too okay. If I was quiet, then I was perceived as too cold. It’s unfathomable that it could become a meme. Imagine losing your mother and it’s entertainment for half the nation.”

Sridevi passed away in February 2018, just months before Janhvi made her Bollywood debut with Dhadak in July of the same year.