Tamaanaah Bhatia, in a recent interview, said that she now feels accepting of her body; thanks to her song in Stree 2.
Tamannaah Bhatia got candid about unrealistic beauty standards for women, and how she would earlier put a lot of pressure on herself to look a certain way. However she soon realized that it only served a very small purpose and did not make her feel beautiful in reference to being skinny.
The actress also gave credit to her hit song ‘Aaj Ki Raat’ from Rajkummar Rao-Shraddha Kapoor starrer Stree 2 for helping her in ‘accepting her body’.
In a chat with Instant Bollywood, Tamannaah said, “I grew up myself on the idea of unrealistic beauty standards for women. So I had that kind of a childhood and upbringing where I felt being skinny was being fit. Growing up while being a part of the movies, I put a lot of pressure on myself to look a certain way. There came a time when I figured it only served a certain utility, but it didn’t actually make me feel beautiful. Times that I actually started to feel good about myself had rarely anything to do with how thin I was. I somewhere feel like maybe Aaj Ki Raat helped me accept my body.”
The ‘Baahubali’ actress then went on to recall an incident after the release of her ‘Kaavaalaa’ song from Jailer where a female fan walked up to her and thanked her for representing curvy women.
“When Kaavaalaa came out, one lady walk up to me at a party and said, ‘Thank you! Because of you, us curvy women feel accepted. You were so big and fat and yet you were enjoying.’ For the first time I registered that according to this lady, I was fat. I didn’t completely understand that till I didn’t hear it from a person. I thought it was normal. I thought that was beautiful. That was my understanding,” she was quoted as saying.
Tamannaah then pointed out how now that everyone has access to phones with camera and social media, and is posting pictures, it creates a certain pressure to look beautiful and a certain way. She said that now that she is in a position of power, and has agency, she wants to emphasize that beauty has nothing to do with how thin or how fair one is.
The actress also recalled a time when she was dressed to the nines, yet she hated herself because she was uncomfortable and couldn’t breathe. On the other hand, she would feel beautiful when she was naturally dressed, and sometimes without her makeup or hair done.
“So beauty has literally nothing to do with all those standards,” Tamannaah concluded.
On the work front, the actress was recently seen in the Netflix film Sikandar Ka Muqadaar alongside Avinash Tiwary and Jimmy Shergill.