Published Nov 03, 2026 | 6:01 PM ⚊ Updated Nov 03, 2026 | 6:01 PM
Actor Radhika Apte (Photo | x.com)
Actor Radhika Apte’s condemnation of the ‘patriarchal situation’ on the sets of a Telugu movie has drawn a sharp online response, reviving questions about how women are treated in Telugu cinema.
In an interview with Zoom to promote her latest Netflix series Akka, in which she stars along with Keerthy Suresh, Apte recalled a Telugu film in which her character had to marry her maternal uncle. She remembered that the actor she was paired with was also significantly older than her.
Apte said she hated everything about the experience. She did not name the film or the actor, but social media users were quick to point to films Legend (2014) and Lion (2015) where she worked with actor Nandamuri Balakrishna.
This is not the first time Apte has spoken about working conditions in the Telugu film industry.
In a 2018 interview, Apte said the Telugu projects she worked on lacked gender equality, though she did not want to generalise. She recalled that on her first day on a Telugu set, a powerful actor made her uncomfortable by tickling her feet during a scene. She also said that she had confronted him in front of the whole crew, and he never touched her again.
In December 2025, while promoting her film Saali Mohabbat with co-star Divyendu, she described shooting a South Indian film where she was the only woman on set. She also said she felt uncomfortable when the film crew pushed her to add more padding to make her body look curvier.
Her comments come amid long-running demands in the Telugu industry for better safeguards for women cast and crew.
After the 2018 #MeToo movement in Telugu cinema, the Telangana government had constituted a 25-member subcommittee to study sexual harassment and discrimination in Telugu film and television. The committee submitted a report based on its findings in 2022, but it was never made available to the public.
The industry collective Voice of Women, and several civil society groups have been demanding that it be placed in the public domain and that strict measures be adopted accordingly.
However, many accounts have criticised Apte’s comments and linked them to her past statements, saying she had an agenda to defame the Telugu film industry. Fans of actor Balakrishna began circulating an older interview in which she expressed gratitude for the film Legend and criticised her for ‘changing colours’ later.
(With inputs from Sreshta Ladegam. Edited by R Rajesh Kumar.)
