New Delhi:

Student of the Year 2 was released in 2019. It launched Ananya Panday and Tara Sutaria alongside Tiger Shroff. The film was vastly criticised, but a look back at the journey of the two female debutantes show that they have indeed come a long way.

Ananya Panday has received much appreciation for her latest work, including Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, CTRL, and, more recently, Kesari Chapter 2.

The actress was recently in conversation with Lilly Singh on the latter’s podcast where she revealed how she was mercilessly body shamed after her debut Student of the Year 2. Ananya revealed that she was given tags like “chicken legs” and “matchstick.”

Ananya revealed, “I was 18-19 when I started and I was really skinny you know, and everyone, you know, used to kind of make fun about that and they were like ‘Oh, you have chicken legs and you like, look like a matchstick, and you don’t have tits, and you don’t have an ass.’ So that was what it was first. And now that I’m growing up and kind of, just like, naturally, my body is filling out, they’re like, ‘Oh, there’s no way, she’s got her butt done or she’s got this done’…You can never win.”

Ananya also added that it’s mostly women who are subjected to such criticism, and men hardly ever receive it.

The actress added, “People will constantly have something to say and criticise that and that’s something that I’ve seen. Especially with women. I don’t feel like they do that to men at all.”

Ananya was honest enough to also put a bit of blame on Bollywood for setting unrealistic beauty standards.

Self-criticising herself, Ananya said,  “I feel like it’s our fault also because we have set unrealistic beauty standards in the films. I…as an actress, (sometimes) do put that messaging out there, the films that I’ve done or the songs that I’ve done that, ‘Oh, you’re beautiful, you wake up in the morning, your hair is done’, and it’s not true! And you kind of have to balance that out somewhere.”

“You have to talk about it, 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,” concluded the actress.

Ananya Panday currently has Chand Mera Dil in her lineup, where she will be seen with Kill star Lakshya.