Preity Zinta, who made waves in Mani Ratnam’s ‘Dil Se’ and then moved on to be a popular actress in Bollywood, received a lot of flak in the past weekend after she had made comments on #MeToo movement, making fun of it with jokes. She had also said that she wish she had faced harassment so that she had something to say to it. The interview with entertainment site Bollywood Hungama went viral with many of her fans and social media calling her out on her ridiculous statements.

Disturbing opinions coming from Preity Zinta on #MeToo movement. Highly insensitive the way she’s going about mocking victims. “You are treated the way you want to be”- Sure @realpreityzinta, you wanted to be molested by Ness Wadia, right? That’s why you filed an FIR against him? pic.twitter.com/AHvpEbF0jv

— హిమాలై🌈 (@Oxynom) November 17, 2018

However, the actress took to Twitter with her statement, saying that the video has been edited in such a way that it looked like she was mocking the movement but it wasn’t the case. She said that she is glad the movement has started and that women should be encouraged to speak about the abuse they’ve faced. She further went on to add that she was smiling in the interview because she was out there to promote her film.

Read her full statement here:

My final statement on the #MeToo movement & everyone around it. pic.twitter.com/SF9vqEhC4b

— Preity G Zinta (@realpreityzinta) November 20, 2018

After Hollywood had its wave last year, this September, India experienced the beginning of its very own #MeToo movement owing to actress Tanushree Dutta opening up about her 10-year-old allegation against veteran actor Nana Patekar, accusing him of harassing her on a film set in 2000. Patekar has denied the charge, calling it “a lie”. Since then several other Bollywood actors and directors have faced accusations of improper behaviour.

The #MeToo movement has already become a prominent in the Tamil industry spearheaded by singer Chinmayi Sripada. Chinmayi has been at the forefront in helping women from the industry (and outside) to speak up on the misconduct they faced. Right from the time when she outed lyricist Vairamuthu, several other women came out relating similar stories involving him. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Chinmayi has been facing a barrage of abuse and threats from those accusing her of seeking publicity and deliberately trying to “defame” a man of his stature.