3 min readNew DelhiJun 30, 2026 05:47 PM IST
Sameera Reddy started her career in the movies in the early 2000s but by the mid-2010s, she withdrew from films after she married businessman Akshai Varde in 2014. Sameera started her career as a mom influencer after she welcomed her kids, and it was during the lockdown that her mother-in-law, Manjri Varde, joined her social media shenanigans. At a recent event, Sameera shared that when she met Manjri, she was a divorced woman who was bothered about the fact that her ex-husband had moved on and gotten remarried. It was then that she made it her mission to empower her mother-in-law so she could be self-reliant.
‘It’s not easy to be single’
At a FICCI FLO event in Bengaluru, Sameera Reddy shared, “I am going to say this openly today. When I met her, she was divorced and my father-in-law had moved on and remarried, and in my head, I always knew, though she never said it, I always knew that it was something that bothered her.” Agreeing with Sameera, Manjri added, “It would bother every one of us. It’s not easy to be single.”
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Sameera continued and said that this was when she “decided to make you super hot and a supersar because I really felt she had it in her. And I wanted that for her so I think when I met her, I definitely felt that… It’s not that she shrunk herself, but she didn’t go out there and just give it.”
‘No one’s going to hold your hand’
Sameera Reddy added that there was a certain judgement from society that she felt, and shared, “That’s what divorcees feel and I am telling you, you don’t need to. You live once, there is one life and if you are going to live it for society… This is literally the speech I gave her. I said, ‘No one’s going to hold your hand when you are standing alone and crying in a corner. You have to get up and you have to make something of yourself’.”
She shared that they never wanted to be disrespectful towards Manjri’s ex-husband, Sameera’s father-in-law, but to carve their own path. “Even if somebody has moved on, we are not here to go and spit in their face; we are here to simultaneously move on our own path. Shine the light on yourself; automatically, everyone starts turning at you.” She added, “The whole point is to not shrink yourself for anybody, not your husband, not even your own family.”
In an earlier chat with Hauterrfly, Sameera Reddy had spoken about her mother-in-law’s candid nature and shared that when she first met her, she was told how Akshai dates a lot of women. She described her as one “who’s been there, spoken to me, been real, always taken my side. Not ki mera beta, mera beta. She’s always been like, ‘Sameera, are you okay? What do you need?’”
Sameera Reddy with her mother-in-law Manjri Varde. (Photo: Sameera Reddy/Instagram)