Sameera Reddy On Social Media and Motherhood

Brut India

"All I could think of is that people would rip me apart." Actress Sameera Reddy spoke to Brut on why she stayed away from the public eye after her pregnancy.

Transcript

00:00It was really hard because when I left the industry and I got pregnant and I took that break,

00:06I left at a time when I was on Vogue's top 10 best dress lists. I used to have this A-line

00:14figure, a whole load of bags and shoes and very, very it. And suddenly from there,

00:20I went to not even fitting into a marks and pencil size 16. And I didn't have the guts to

00:27come out there and just surrender and say, look, I've put on a lot of weight.

00:40When I started my career in 2004, I would be told, listen, please wear a butt pad because

01:03you don't have a butt. You need to pad up a bit more. Can you get some more cleavage?

01:13But I mean, that was right in the beginning. And I wasn't a star kid or I didn't have any

01:18backing. I wasn't part of any camp. I was very boyish. I was always told that I was unapproachable.

01:26I was always told that. I was just too Bindas. So what used to happen is I used to come across

01:31very cool to a point where people used to get confused whether I'm sexy, whether I'm intelligent,

01:36whether I'm like super dumb. So if anybody tried to come to even approach me to even

01:42start some conversation, they would kind of get very confused. And that was my agenda.

01:46I still cannot believe that I sat at home for two years because all I could think of was

02:05people are going to rip me apart. It took a toll on me. And for some strange reason,

02:10I thought I was the only one who went through something like this. Because women don't talk

02:14about it. Women just hide. Mothers just hide. Forget about that. In general, anybody who's put

02:19on weight just starts to self-loathe to a point where you think that everything is just darkened

02:25and you're the only one in this little horrible space and you can't get out.

02:38I don't know whether it gives you people anxiety, but my God, in the beginning, I was like,

02:42wow, do people have such amazing lives? You just wake up in the morning and poof.

02:49I just said, I can't fit in. Where am I going to fit in all of this? I'm pregnant. I have my son

02:55who's dropping his chocolate milk on my dress. I'm not going to the parties. I'm not part of

03:03that scene anymore. I mean, how do I fit in? And then it just came to me that I don't need to fit

03:07in. I just need to be. Slowly when I was pregnant, I started, you know, bearing my stomach, showing a

03:18stretch mark here and there. I was testing the waters. And every time I did something like that,

03:24the response was fabulous. And then I did this underwater shoot where I completely like,

03:31my parents almost fell down because I had this nine-month belly underwater and I completely

03:36showed it. And I got trolled, but I equally got supported by women who are like, oh my God,

03:42she's just showing it. She's showing her flaps, she's showing her back flaps, she's showing her tummy.

03:47And I was trying to say that it's the most beautiful time of your life.

03:56My sister always said that in my whole career, people really couldn't get to know me and my

04:02sense of humor and my quirkiness. And she said that it's amazing how social media has given

04:09me my expression, which is just to not only just speak about what I feel, but to

04:17not feel like I'm judged.

Category

Transcript

Recommended