Raj Kundra Case: Shruti Gera Recalls Being Approached For A Web Series Produced By Shilpa Shetty’s Husband (Photo Credit: Instagram)
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Shilpa Shetty’s husband and businessman Raj Kundra’s arrest in connection with making and distributing p*rnographic films earlier this week has opened a can of worms. As several actresses come out to make shocking statements about the alleged racket, Shruti Gera has now made some revelations on her experience.
Kundra is reportedly the key conspirator in the 9 arrests made by the Mumbai Crime Branch. He had allegedly lured several women into casting p*rnographic films on the false pretext of offering them in web series.
Shruti Gera has now revealed that she was approached by casting directors in 2018 for a web series produced by Raj Kundra. However, she had refused the offer. Talking about it to Hindustan Times, she said, “I don’t remember exactly which casting director mentioned it to me but at least a few did. One mentioned they could introduce me to Raj Kundra, another said this guy intends to start a production house and he is coming into the webspace in a big way. I said no to it immediately. But I am more grateful that I kept myself safe. We all thought that he is some big shot but turns out he is a person who does porn films.”
The actress, who was seen in the 2009 film Toss: A Flip of Destiny, also revealed that why the newcomers shouldn’t be blamed and questioned as to why they do not realise that someone is not right. She said, “Imagine someone like me who has done several hundreds of TV commercials with the biggest brands out there and a casting guy has the audacity to approach someone like me. When the news came out, I felt like someone punched in the stomach that how dare someone think that I would be open to do such a thing.”
Shruti Gera took a sabbatical from acting around 2018 and founded a skincare company. She said, “I realised that a lot goes on here in the industry. Young female actors are drugged, their compromising videos are shot and through that people blackmail them and pimp them out. It is very common. Even young male actors face this. They do a lot of things, they honey trap and they make you vulnerable… I have walked out of projects when I realised that the makers had ill intentions. But it is always not that easy. They also put cameras in your room and shoot something and then blackmail you with it and force an actor to do something that they don’t want to.”
She also called out the dubious casting process in Bollywood and said that auditions are the right way to cast ideally but those happen mostly for ads or character roles in films. Gera said, “The main leads are hardly ever auditioned unless it’s an all-new cast in a film which is rare. Even for the big banner films, the main cast is always decided and they hunt just to fill up roles. Things are changing slowly now but films are known to be ventured into via socializing, meetings and contacts, making it a grey area and models/actors are susceptible to exploitation be it males or females.”
