To jiggle your memory a bit, in 2016, Sona Mohapatra called out Salman Khan for his misogyny after he compared himself to a “raped woman” while talking about shooting for his film ‘Sultan’.
“When I used to walk out of the ring, after the shoot, I used to feel like a raped woman. I couldn’t walk straight,” he had said.
Besides several people, singer Sona Mohapatra had slammed the actor for his insensitive comment. But things took turn for the worse. Several ‘Bhai’ fans bombarded the singer’s DMs with rape and death threats. She became a victim of incessant social media trolling and harassment.
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In a recent interview, Sona Mohapatra recalled the incident and shared details of all the shocking experiences she had to go through, just because she called out a male superstar’s insensitivity. Hindustan Times quoted her saying:
“I had gone through the most hideous trolling, including death threats and literally shit being delivered in dabbas (lunch boxes) in my studio, because I had called out Salman Khan for his misogyny and statements.”
As if this wasn’t enough, she found her pictures being morphed into porn sites, reported Zee News.
“It was horrible. And then we realised it was a consolidated digital army that was not necessarily just made up of fans. It further scared away women from being online. It was premeditated. There were a lot of paid bots that were in this whole game. I decided to take it up head-on and it was horrible for my family.”
Of course, the incident affected her mental health negatively and she often found herself sobbing in her studio.
“It was exhausting, and some days Ram (Sampath, musician and her husband) would come back to the studio and I would be sobbing on my couch. You’ll see a lot of those swollen looks in my documentary, Shut Up Sona, because dealing with the constant trolling and the constant negativity was not easy. It’s not something I enjoy for sure. But it is still worth going through because it does slowly change the conversations.”
Imagine the horror of a woman who had to endure all this just because she spoke out against a man.