In an open and honest talk on "Spice It Up" with content creator Apoorva Mukhija, Mouni Roy revealed a disconcerting experience that happened when she was 21. During a script narration, a man held her face and enacted "mouth-to-mouth resuscitation" without her consent, acting like it was part of the scene.
Mouni said she froze, did not know how to react, and ran out of the room. “I didn’t know what was happening,” she recalled, describing it as a moment that scarred her for years.
The conversation hit home deeper than expected, as Apoorva Mukhija-known as the "rebel kid"-has also faced her own share of harassment. Since her appearance on India's Got Talent, she became a target of online abuse and rape threats, and continues to speak out against toxicity in digital spaces.
Together, the two voices gave a rare, unfiltered peek into what women go through both on screen and in the realm of online activity in industries that glamourize with little respect for boundaries.
Credit: AFP
From Kangana Ranaut's outspoken critique of power hierarchies to Radhika Apte and Swara Bhasker recounting uncomfortable auditions, several actresses have spoken to similar experiences. Each story, though personal, speaks to a larger problem: one where the lines between professionalism and predation remain blurred by power and silence.
The question that lingers, As commendable as Mouni is to have spoken up years later, her story raises a pertinent question-one that the post-#MeToo world has still not answered: do women in Bollywood still bear the burden of tolerating discomfort for survival in a male-dominated industry, or have the same old rules just gone underground?
