New Delhi: In a candid conversation with co-star Rajkummar Rao and producer Karan Johar on the Dharma Productions YouTube channel, Generation next star Janhvi Kapoor recently shared her experience of feeling sexualized by the media when she was just 12-13 years old. The two lead actors will share the screen together in ‘Mr and Mrs Mahi’ – a sports drama backed by Dharma. 

In her chat session, Janhvi shared the horrifying incident where as a teen she attended an event with her parents and later found her pictures on various adult sites. She said, “The first time I felt sexualized by the media was when I was 12-13 years old. I attended an event with my mom and dad, and photos of me appeared online. Social media was just starting to gain traction, and I discovered my pictures on what seemed like a pornographic site. Boys at my school were looking at these photos and laughing.”

“It’s a very weird thing to navigate, and I’ve been dealing with it for a long time. I feel very apologetic about where I come from and I need to get over that. I know others deal with this in a different, perhaps more terrifying way. But for me, it was complicated. There’s a sort of character assassination that happens when a girl dresses in a way that makes her seem comfortable with her sexuality,” she quipped.

Janhvi also talked about her preferences with it comes to dressing up. “On one hand, I do like dressing a certain way and I have been brought up in a household where I don’t feel apologetic about it, where I don’t feel judged by it but I do understand that there is sentiment of a sort of character assassination that a girl faces when she dresses in a way that makes it seem like she is comfortable with her sexuality,” she added.