Radhikka Madan has opened up about the pressure she faced to meet conventional beauty standards, recalling how she was told she was “too fat” to become a heroine after gaining weight for a film. The actress also spoke about the consequences of trying to meet those expectations, revealing that her efforts to lose weight eventually began affecting her health.
Recalling her transformation for Pataakha, Radhikka shared that she had gained 15 kilograms for the film and subsequently began losing the weight while working on Shiddat and Angrezi Medium. During this period, she faced comments about her appearance that pushed her to continue losing weight.
“I had gained 15 kgs for Pataakha, and I was losing that weight through Shiddat and Angrezi Medium. I was told that I was 'too fat. Heroine kaise banegi ye'. I kept losing weight and shooting back-to-back and fully became like bones. It started affecting my health, so I took a break,” she said.
The actress explained that the criticism continued even after her appearance changed, making her question why she was trying to satisfy other people’s expectations. She eventually decided to prioritise feeling healthy instead of chasing a particular body size. “Earlier, I was too fat, now I was too thin, and in between, I was neither here nor there. I asked myself why am I trying to please people when they will never be happy? So, I started focusing on feeling healthy rather than chasing a particular body size. Once you do that, others' opinions don't affect you as you become wiser. You don't know what insecurity they are coming from. But I have that security of knowing that now, I am chasing health,” she added.
Radhikka also reflected on how societal conditioning shapes perceptions of the so-called perfect woman, particularly for young girls who grow up seeing a narrow representation of beauty in magazines. She went on to share, “Us time pe aisa hota nahi hai (didn’t have money at that time) because we have this manicured idea and this burden, especially on girls, about how to look and what's a perfect size. And if you aren't fitting in that, you are going wrong. That conditioning comes from childhood as you see such women only on magazine covers. We have to realise that the idea of a perfect woman is fed to us.”
Looking back at her school years, the actress recalled having a unibrow and being very hairy but credited her positive upbringing with helping her develop self-confidence early on. She stated, “In school, I even had a unibrow and was really hairy, but because my parenting was quite positive, I was hyped so much that I felt people don't realise but I am beautiful.”
Radhikka was last seen alongside Ali Fazal in Lust Stories 3, which is currently streaming on Netflix.
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