Janhvi Kapoor says 'will forever carry shame of' Peddi: 'Was it extreme objectification? 100 percent'

The latest episode of Karan Johar's Koffee With Karan has arrived with his 'student' Varun Dhawan and 'homebound' Janhvi Kapoor. The host, who shares a close relationship with the two actors, walked straight into the Peddi controversy involving Janhvi Kapoor, and called her "emotionally strong" to have been able to deal with so much trolling online.

Karan Johar said, "It takes a lot of strength to deal with all the internet craziness that you have been subjected to in the last one or two years. Everybody knows Janhvi Kapoor is sexy; there's a difference between being sexy and being sexualised. So, what happened with the Peddi controversy. I know it really affected you in more ways than one because I spoke to you on the day it happened." Janhvi interrupted by saying, "You spoke to me through that process."

Karan further asked that there were two sections of people, the one that sympathised to the sexualistion of her character's portrayal; and the other was, 'Oh, but she was on that set. Why didn't she stop?' and what did you feel?

Janhvi continued, "The only thing that I can do is to ensure that it doesn't happen again. I went through the beats of really beating myself up of 'I should have been more vigilant. I should have made a bigger scene.' Again, I don't like saying this because it sounds like I am shifting blame but you know how it's like, 'Yes, whatever the director says, you have to be professional, you have to listen to the director.' So, I was really navigating how to make things less problematic as best I thought, as and when information was becoming available to me, because in the South, there's very rarely a bound script, and very rarely in those scripts you see, where the camera angles are but having said that I also need to take responsibility for my half of it. I do come from a place of privilege, I should have taken advantage of that because I am going to get the sh*t for being privilege anyway. So, I might as well may have leveraged it."

Karan prodded, "Did you feel let down by the filmmaker? Did you feel disappointed at that time or you felt that he didn't mean to but it so happened in the way it unravelled? Answering this, the actor said, "God, I really get so conscious when I speak about this because I don't want to sound like that I am trying to be the victim here. It was a violating experience in a way."

Janhvi Kapoor accepted that both Karan Johar and Varun Dhawan supported her during this entire phase. She said, "Both of you'll have been with me through the beats of me trying to articulate discomfort throughout the course of shooting, even post-production. But anyway, that doesn't matter. The good thing that came out of all this, is that maybe tomorrow someone else will think twice before they present a lead actress this way. Tomorrow, when someone else says, 'I don't know if I'm fully comfortable with this,' maybe they won't be looked at like an alien."

The controversy erupted after Janhvi Kapoor's first-look song from the Telugu film Peddi, starring Ram Charan, drew criticism online over the way her character, Achiyyamma was presented. Several viewers objected to the sexualised portrayal of the character, arguing that the visuals and choreography crossed the line into objectification. Following the controversy, director Buchi Babu Sana apologised to viewers who felt uncomfortable and said changes would be made to the disputed portions.