Kiara Advani has responded to the criticism she faced for her romantic and intimate scenes in Toxic. Speaking on Koffee With Karan with her husband Sidharth Malhotra, Kiara called out the double standard actresses face after marriage, and revealed how Sidharth reacted to it all.
“What Does Sidharth Malhotra Have to Say?”
Kiara said the reaction to her intimate scenes in Toxic was what bothered her the most.
“What bothered me was there is a gender bias. Because the man is romancing girls, nobody says anything. And a woman is in an intimate setting in a film, and suddenly it’s like, ‘Oh, she’s a married woman.’ And ‘What does Sidharth Malhotra have to say about this?’ This amount of gender bias and this double standard…” Kiara said.
She added that actresses have faced this “for decades. Like, from Aishwarya to so many wonderful actors.”
Sidharth Was Not Bothered
When Karan said he knew Sidharth had a progressive mind, Kiara answered for her husband. “I think I actually fed off his energy, because he had not cared about it. He’s never brought it up. We’ve never spoken about this. It didn’t affect him. He was not bothered,” she said.
She also said she didn’t feel the need to respond to the trolling, because many people online were already standing up for her. “There was a massive reaction of people who had already started calling it out. Calling out the hypocrisy,” she said.
Karan praised the couple for not letting it affect them. “More power to both of you to not even make it a point of discussion in your lives,” he said.
“Yeah, we didn’t even actually discuss it,” Kiara replied.
“On Day One, It’s Heartbreaking”
Kiara also spoke about how Toxic performed at the box office. Karan pointed out that she had been praised for her role even though the film didn’t succeed, despite opening with ₹100 crore worldwide on day one.
“I mean, on day one, it’s heartbreaking. And especially for this film, because I think as a team in totality, I don’t think any of us saw it coming, you know. When it misfired,” Kiara said. “That weekend, I was very low about it.”
The appreciation for her performance helped her move on. “There was a lot of appreciation for the fact that I had gone out of my comfort zone for playing a role. Like, for me, I think in my journey, this will be defining,” she said.
