Actress Anjali Anand, who made her Bollywood debut in Karan Johar’s Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani alongside Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt, has opened up about a painful and traumatic experience from her childhood.
In a heartfelt interview with Hauterrfly, she revealed how someone she once trusted deeply betrayed that trust during a vulnerable time in her life.
Anjali, who lost her father at the age of eight, shared that the abuser wasn’t a family member but someone who had been welcomed into their inner circle.
“It wasn’t a relative. It was someone who made himself family — a dance teacher, actually,” she said.
“I’ve never spoken about this publicly, but I felt ready today. I thought, if the question comes, I’ll answer it.”
She recalled how the abuse began when she was alone with him, just after her father’s death.
“He isolated me. He tried a lot when we were alone, and I didn’t understand what he was doing. I was just eight years old.”
What made it more confusing for her was the emotional manipulation.
“He told me, ‘I am your dad.’ And I believed him—I didn’t know any better,” she said. The abuse started subtly but soon escalated. “It began with a kiss here and there, even on the lips. And he told me, ‘This is what dads do.’”
Anjali admitted that coming to terms with what happened was incredibly difficult.
“This is probably the first time I’m really speaking about it, and it’s time. I watch documentaries about girls who don’t know where to turn or how to speak up. That was me. How do you explain something you don’t understand? I didn’t even know what a real father-daughter relationship looked like. He made me believe this was normal.”
The abuse wasn’t only physical — it extended to controlling her appearance and personal life.
“He wouldn’t let me keep my hair open. He wouldn’t let me wear women’s clothes. I had to wear his old t-shirts so I wouldn’t look attractive to anyone else,” she revealed.
It wasn’t until much later that Anjali began to understand that what had happened wasn’t normal.
“At my sister’s wedding, one of my dad’s best friend’s sons developed a crush on me and started talking to me. That’s when I felt something genuine, something normal. And it hit me—what had been happening was wrong. But I felt stuck.”
She also described how her abuser monitored her constantly.
“He kept tabs on my messages — he even had them printed out. He caught me once with that guy. He didn’t even let me attend school normally. I had private tutors, and he would call them regularly. He used to wait outside my school every day. People wondered why he was always there, but no one ever questioned it.”
Anjali credited her first boyfriend for unknowingly helping her break free from her abuser. Though she didn’t open up to him at the time, she later expressed her gratitude.
“I dated him for two years, and after we broke up, years later, I took him for a walk and said, ‘Thank you. You actually saved me back then, and you didn’t even know it.’ I didn’t have the strength to tell anyone what I was going through—but he helped me without realizing it.”
