Not married' to preserve a career

The relationship status of a movie star, especially an actress is very critical for her success in the Southern industry. Being single is the most crucial qualification to sustain and excel in the film industry. Once married or even engaged, one can see their acting career declining at a rapid pace. Many actress simply cease to exist with no opportunities coming their way. Even male actors are known to carefully chose to brandish their singlehood, thought it has never been a matter of great concern. Recent revelations of certain actresses have again proved the importance of keeping it single, though the scenario has seen some change in Bollywood and Hollywood, where even married actresses are doing equally well. Bengaluru Chronicle reports.

While the ‘me too’ storm has hit Sandalwood badly, it was actress Sangeetha Bhat who started it all by revealing her 10 year ordeal in the industry. Though she chose not to name the perpetrators, the actress has painfully explained in vivid detail why she chose to reveal the harassment now, and what made her decide to quit the film industry. She even revealed that she is married but kept it a secret to save her career in the industry.

“I even hid the fact that I was married, just to save my career in the film industry, which surprisingly doesn’t give much of an opportunity to married people. My husband has been very supportive through this entire journey and held me together during the tough times,” Sangeetha shares in her post. Soon after making her marriage public, the actress changed her profile name on various social media accounts to Sangeetha Sudarshan.

Even in the case of Sruthi Hariharan, who has directly accused multi-lingual star actor Arjun Sarja of sexually abusing her since 2015, Sruthi revealed that she is married to Raam Kumar while filing a police complaint against Arjun Sarja at the Cubbon Park police station. According to reports, when the police questioned the actress on referring to herself in the complaint as ‘Smt Sruthi Hairiharan’ the actress answered saying that she is married, and had chosen not to make it public. She later revealed her husband’s name as Raam Kumar.

Producer Vijay admits that the relationship status matters when it comes to star actors, especially actresses. “Unlike the present scenario, scripts were heavily stereotyped in the past, and it revolved around love sagas and were rarely out-of-the-box experiments. Actresses usually married after they retired or stopped playing lead roles. Or they chose not to make their relationship status public as it would mean the end of their career. Either they had to shift to playing character roles or other roles where they were accepted by the audience. However, this scenario is changing, but at a very slow pace,” he adds.

In the case of actor Sathish Ninasam, who simply preferred to keep his marriage a secret, he announced it after he became a father.

“Just like any mother, even my mother wanted me to get married. I got married to the love of my life and now I am a father to a baby girl,” Sathish revealed in 2015, a year after he got married.

Marriages of Real Star Upendra, Golden Star Ganesh and a few more had left their fans shocked. Sources say that it could also be one of the major factors in the break-up of the Rakshit Shetty-Rashmika Mandanna engagement, as both wanted to concentrate on their careers.