Actress Daisi Irani reveals she was sexually harassed when six-years-old
Veteran actress Daisy Irani has revealed she was sexually harassed when she was six years old. The actor debuted as a child artist in Bandish (1955) and went on to do roles in hit movies like Naya Daur and Dhool ka Phool, mostly playing roles of boys.
In an interview given to Mumbai Mirror, the Parsi actor revealed the horrors of being sexually harassed and how it ‘dented’ her life forever.
The perpetrator, the actress reveals was her guardian.“The man who did this was supposed to be my guardian. He accompanied me to a film shoot of Hum Panchhi Ek Dal Ke in Madras. One night in the hotel room he violated me, hit me with a belt and warned me that he would kill me if I ever told anyone about what had happened.”
It took her 60 years to come up and tell this story to the world but the incident has dented he life since then, she said. The event psychologically affected and she said, “All I can say is as I grew up, I started flirting outrageously, I would tease and taunt men. I did not even understand what I was doing. I became badtameez.
Daisy Irani said that she was making the revelations years later because she wanted to caution the current generation of child actors and their parents. “Child actors have it tough,” she said. “In a majority of cases, they have been taken advantage of. Maybe a few have had it easy, but most don’t, really.”
While the industry struggles to keep with its fair share of accusations for casting couch, Daisy’s revelation has exposed the dark side of the film industry where even child artistes not being spared.
