Ananya Panday opens up to Lilly Singh about being skinny-shamed, admits to Bollywood's unrealistic beauty standards

Hindustan Times

17-05-2025

Ananya Panday isn't shying away from calling out things as they are. In an honest, sit-down chat with Lilly Singh on the latter's podcast, Ananya opened up about the very real eventuality of just not winning when it came to a unanimous stamp of approval. She went into detail about how when she had made her Bollywood debut with Student of the Year 2 (2019), she was incessantly skinny-shamed for having "chicken legs" and looking like a "matchstick". However, when growing up her body began to do its thing, naturally filling out and giving her her subtle curves, there was still plenty of unfounded conjecture still going around.
Ananya shared, "I was 18-19 when I started out and I was really skinny you know, and everyone, you know, used to kind of make fun about that and they were like 'oh, you have chicken legs and you like, look like a matchstick, and you don't have tits, and you don't have an ass'. So that was what it was first. And now that I'm growing up and kind of, just like, naturally, my body is filling out, they're like 'oh, there's no way, she's got her butt done or she's got this done'...You can never win".
Being completely honest, Ananya even went so far as to call women out for not being girls' girls — always subjecting a fellow woman to this kind of scrutiny, but never a man. She articulated, "People will constantly have something to say and criticise that and that's something that I've seen. Especially with women. I don't feel like they do that to men at all".
That being said, this was not some self-serving rant. Ananya's very next segue became about how, Bollywood at large, but she herself has also been at fault for promoting unrealistic beauty standards: "I feel like it's our fault also, because we have set unrealistic beauty standards in the films that we've...you know I...as an actress, (sometimes) do put that messaging out there, the films that 'I've done or the songs that I've done that 'oh, you're beautiful, you wake up in the morning, your hair is done, and it's not true! and you kind of have to balance that out somewhere".
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And how exactly is Ananya managing that? "You have to talk about it, you have to tell people that that's not the reality. We also don't look like that. And I, try to balance that out, maybe, by not being like that when I'm, you know, off camera", she adds.
Ananya was last seen in the Akshay Kumar and R Madhavan-led Kesari Chapter 2. She is currently filming for Chand Mera Dil, also starring Lakshya.