Ananya Panday is no stranger to scrutiny, but the actress is now speaking out with honesty and introspection about the toll of unrealistic beauty standards and how they impact young women — including herself.
Ananya Panday on toxic beauty norms: “People said i had chicken legs, no ‘t**s’, no a** – you can never win”
In a heartfelt conversation with popular YouTuber Lilly Singh, Ananya recalled the early days of her career when she was just 18 or 19 and how the criticism she faced was deeply personal. “I was really skinny, you know, and everyone used to kind of make fun about that. They were like, oh, you have chicken legs, and you look like a matchstick, and you don’t have t**s, and you don’t have an a**,” she said. “So that was what it was first.”
Even as her body changed and she grew in the public eye, the commentary didn’t stop. “They were like, oh, there’s no way she’s got her b*** done, or she’s got this done. So you can never win. People will constantly have something to say and criticize that,” she added, noting how such commentary disproportionately targets women. “That’s something that I’ve seen, especially with women. I don’t feel like they do that to men at all.”
The 25-year-old actress also took a moment to reflect on the role that the film industry plays in shaping public perception, admitting, “I feel like it’s our fault also, because we have set unrealistic beauty standards in the films that we’ve… You know, I, as an actress, feel like sometimes I do put that messaging out there in the films that I’ve done or the songs that I’ve done — that, oh, you’re all beautiful, you wake up in the morning, and your hair’s done, and it’s not true.”
Trying to counter the filtered perfection seen on screen, Ananya emphasized the importance of authenticity. “You kind of have to balance that out somewhere. You have to talk about it, and you have to tell people that that’s not the reality. We also don’t look like that. And I try to balance that out, maybe, by not being like that when I’m, you know, off-camera.”
On the work front, Ananya is gearing up for Chand Mera Dil, a romantic drama under Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions. The film pairs her with Lakshya and is already generating buzz. Along with that, the actress is also expected to return as Bella aka Bae in her popular web series- Call Me Bae for Season 2 on Prime Video.
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