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Actor Rhea Chakraborty recently made a comeback to public life with a podcast series titled Chapter 2. She has interviewed Farhan Akhtar-Shibani Dandekar, Aamir Khan and Sushmita Sen over the last few weeks. The latest guest on her podcast was singer Yo Yo Honey Singh, who shared his experiences with mental illness. During their conversation, they discussed the importance of understanding the severity of bipolar disorder, and the importance of spreading awareness around the illness. Rhea recalled spending time in jail after the death of her boyfriend, Sushant Singh Rajput. She said the police thanked her for educating them about mental illness.
Speaking with Honey Singh, Rhea said, “I have seen bipolar disorder very closely. After watching your interviews, I was extremely moved by the way you were sharing your experiences. These things are so personal. And the illness is such that a lot of people don’t survive it to share their experiences. So, having a superstar survive the illness, come forward and share it… it was a big deal, especially when Indians are not very aware of these things.”
Honey Singh agreed with Rhea and said, “People don’t survive…” Elaborating on his experience, the singer spoke in detail about the kind of triggers he experienced and how, after a point, he started believing that he was going to die. His illness had reached a point where he believed that his family didn’t exist and people around him were impostors.
Expressing her concern for the singer, Rhea recalled the time she spent in jail, after she was sentenced in connection with a drugs-related case. She said, “People don’t understand bipolar disorder. People either call (patients) crazy or think they have been possessed. When I was in jail, there is something called suicide watch… It’s for people involved in media-sensitive cases. This is mostly to keep a watch on the person so that they don’t take any extreme step. Now, because I was in the solitary confinement, I could only speak to these two ladies who were watching me. During that time, I spoke a lot about mental health to them.”
She added, “For about 15 days, I spoke a lot about mental health, and I was trying to understand things, given whatever was happening in my life. Around the 16th day, one of those two ladies told me, ‘I am going to my village. All this while people used to tie my husband to a Peepal tree because they believed he was possessed. But after listening to you, it seems like my husband must be suffering from the same thing.’ She thanked me for making her understand. She came to meet me on my bail day and said, ‘You were right, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.’ Sometimes, I think the whole purpose of me being in the jail at that time was to save that man. It is very necessary to understand the illness.”
In 2020, Rhea Chakraborty was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau in September 2020 on drug-related charges. The case was connected to the death of her ex-boyfriend, actor Sushant Singh Rajput. He died by suicide in June 2020.
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