Janhvi Kapoor Breaks Her Silence on Peddi: 'Extreme Objectification', 'a Violating Experience'
Five months after the Ram Charan film's backlash, Kapoor told Karan Johar it was "a violating experience in a way", that she could have "made a bigger scene" on set, and that the film did propagate sexual assault in its story.
Janhvi Kapoor has spoken about Peddi, the Ram Charan film whose portrayal of her character drew a backlash after its release in June. On the third episode of Koffee With Karan's final season, which began streaming on JioHotstar on 28 October 2026, she told Karan Johar the film had been "a violating experience in a way".
She said she had been "so apprehensive to talk about it" because "many people worked very hard on that film". Then she answered the questions herself: "Was it problematic? Was it extreme objectification? Did it even propagate sexual assault narratively? Yes."
What She Said
Kapoor, who played Achiyamma, the love interest of Ram Charan's title character, directed much of the blame at herself. "Could I have done more? Could I have been more vigilant? Could I have made a bigger scene? A hundred percent, yes," she said. "I went through the beats of really beating myself up. I should have been more vigilant."
She described how an actor is expected to behave on set: "you feel like whatever the director says, be professional, listen to the director." She added that "in the South, there very rarely is a bound script", a finished screenplay an actor can read through before shooting.
Kapoor said she should have used her position: "I should have taken advantage of that because I'm going to get the criticism for being privileged anyway." She was wary of how she would come across. "I don't want to sound like I'm trying to be the victim here," she said, while describing "trying to articulate discomfort throughout the course of shooting, even post-production".
She said she hoped speaking now would change something: "maybe tomorrow someone else will think twice before they present a lead actress this way."
What the Criticism Was
Peddi is a Telugu sports action drama written and directed by Buchi Babu Sana and presented by Mythri Movie Makers and Sukumar Writings. It opened in cinemas on 4 June 2026, in Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam.
Soon after release, viewers objected to camera shots that focused on Kapoor's body and to a romantic sequence that was criticised for its treatment of consent. The row widened into a debate about how Indian films show women, with Jaya Bachchan, Kangana Ranaut and Nithya Menen among those who spoke about the objectification of women on screen, Outlook India reported.
What the Director Did
Sana apologised publicly and said the portions would be changed. By 9 June he said they had been cut: "a few shots turned misleading," and the team had taken "corrective measures to remove them, and we have removed them", Outlook India reported.
He also defended the character's place in the story. "In my opinion, a lot of people misread Janhvi Kapoor's track as unnecessary in an otherwise good story," he told SCREEN. He said he "went a little radical, because Peddi comes from a remote place", and that he "wanted to show the rawness and later correct it in the end".
None of the reports on the Koffee With Karan episode carried a response from Sana, Ram Charan or the film's producers to Kapoor's remarks.
Maybe tomorrow someone else will think twice before they present a lead actress this way.
The Rest of the Episode
Kapoor appeared on the show with Varun Dhawan, her co-star in Bawaal. Much of their conversation with Johar went back over a 2023 falling-out with him over a release-date clash, which the three said they have since made up.
