Sonali Bendre says producers wanted to ‘fatten’ her up during the 90s: ‘They wanted women who were curvaceous and voluptuous’

Body shaming is an unfortunate reality that many women face on a daily basis, especially within the entertainment industry where comments can be particularly brazen. In a recent interview, Sonali Bendre opened up about her experiences of being body shamed by numerous producers during her early days in the Hindi film industry. The actor disclosed that producers often pressured her to gain weight, as the prevailing beauty standards of the 90s favoured a different body type.

Talking to Hauterrfly, Sonali said, “When I came in the industry, heroines didn’t used to be this skinny. Every producer was trying to fatten me up all the time. They would just tell me to ‘eat eat eat bahut patli hai (she is too thin).’ They wanted curves. At that time, they wanted women who were curvaceous and voluptuous and who had curls in their hair. And I was straight black hair and I was skinny.” Sonali also insisted that people might have set a norm of what is good-looking and what isn’t but you have to feel confident and feel beautiful in your body.

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This isn’t the first time Sonali has addressed the issue of body shaming. In 2022, she discussed how deeply ingrained body shaming is in society during an interview with Bollywood Bubble. She said, “I do agree body shaming should not have any part in our society and especially little girls and the kind of ideas they are growing with and the crazy dieting people are doing. People are forgetting that it is not holistic.”

On the professional front, Sonali is gearing up for the release of the highly anticipated ZEE5 series The Broken News 2, scheduled to premiere on May.