Ananya Blacksmith has often spoken about dealing with online trolls, but her mother, Bhavana Pandeyrecently revealed how deeply the trolling affected her as a parent. Speaking at We The Women with Barkha Dutt, Bhavana shared that she sought therapy to cope during challenging times.
“I was in therapy for about a year, maybe a little longer,” Bhavana said. “I still take therapy off and on when I find things I can’t handle on my own.” She explained how Ananya’s trolling impacted her more than it did her daughter.“Her trolling affected me more than it affected her. I was an overly sensitive person, but I’ve become stronger. Even now, I sometimes take therapy during such times. I also talk a lot to Chunky [Panday]who is my best friend, but it’s biased sometimes,” she shared candidly.
Bhavana also addressed how others dismissed her concerns, telling her she had no reason to be anxious. “Even my own parents would say, ‘What are you anxious about? You have everything.’ But I still took therapy, and I think that was the best decision I made,” she added.
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At the same event, Ananya Panday opened up about facing online criticism early in her career. She recounted an incident from her first year in the industry when false rumours about her education surfaced. “Someone made a fake Instagram account, claiming they went to school with me, saying I had lied about my education. At first, I thought, ‘No one is going to believe that.’ But people did. When it spiraled out of control, it really shook my confidence,” she revealed.
Bhavana was recently seen in Netflix’s Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wiveswhere she appeared alongside Maheep Kapoor, Seema Sajdeh, Neelam Kothari Soni, and others.