By Janhvi Kapoor has broken her silence on one of the most painful chapters of her life. In a candid appearance on the Raj Shamani Podcast, the actress revealed that she was clinically depressed following the release of her debut film, Dhadak — despite the film being a box office success. Her words paint a picture far more complicated than what the industry saw from the outside.
A Debut Shadowed by Grief
Most actors dream of a debut like Dhadak. Produced by Karan Johar under Dharma Productions and released in 2018, the film collected over ₹1.1 billion worldwide, making it one of the most commercially successful debuts in recent Bollywood history.
But Janhvi Kapoor wasn’t celebrating.
Speaking on the Raj Shamani Podcast, she revealed she was “depressed” and felt completely lost — not because the film failed, but because the person she needed most was no longer there.
Janhvi lost her mother, Sridevi, on February 24, 2018 — just months before Dhadak hit theatres on July 20, 2018. She had entered one of the biggest moments of her life while still processing one of its most devastating losses.
Dhadak’s Success Meant Nothing to Her
Instead of celebrating the film’s commercial performance, Janhvi found herself overwhelmed by criticism and negative perceptions. She admitted that her memories of the film are not joyful.
She believed audiences hadn’t accepted her. The box office numbers told one story; her inner world told another entirely.
At the time, she felt deeply insecure about her performance and questioned her place in the industry and her own abilities as an actor.
This wasn’t just post-release anxiety. For Janhvi Kapoor, Dhadak carried a weight that no other debut film in Bollywood history has quite matched — she had filmed parts of it after her mother’s sudden death, returned to set within weeks, and then watched the world debate her performance without knowing the full context of what she had endured.
Sridevi: “The Biggest Trauma”
At the center of Janhvi’s pain was the loss of Sridevi — not just a mother, but her primary source of confidence and direction.
Janhvi described losing her mother as the “biggest trauma” of her life, saying: “The biggest trauma was losing my mom the way I did, in front of the whole world, and dealing with that journey.”
She also acknowledged that while others have faced similar loss, her specific experience is one no one else could fully understand: “I know I’m not the only one who has dealt with that at that age, but my journey in this space, no one will understand.”
Sridevi had actually been the reason Janhvi was cast in Dhadak in the first place — Karan Johar approached Janhvi on her mother’s insistence to play the female lead. The film was, in many ways, a gift from Sridevi to her daughter. Releasing it without her mother alive to see it made the experience feel hollow.
Janhvi had previously shared that before the film released, her mother had watched 25 minutes of it and was already giving her technical feedback — focused and precise, telling her exactly what needed to be improved. That voice went silent before Dhadak ever reached theatres.
The Public Scrutiny That Made It Worse
Being a star kid in Bollywood is never uncomplicated. For Janhvi Kapoor, the conversation around nepotism reached fever pitch at the time of Dhadak’s release.
She recalled believing that audiences didn’t accept her, and this sense of rejection compounded her depression at an already fragile time.
Critics were divided. While some noted that she had “a fragility that makes her instantly endearing,” others felt she delivered a colourless performance. Neither camp seemed to account for the fact that this was a young woman who had just buried her mother and walked straight onto a film set.
To her credit, Janhvi showed remarkable professionalism during the shoot itself — setting aside her grief to complete the remaining schedule, with the support of Karan Johar and co-star Ishaan Khatter.
But professionalism has a cost. Suppressing grief to finish a film, then watching the world scrutinize your performance while you’re still in mourning, is a pressure few people in any profession would handle easily.
How Janhvi Kapoor Found Her Way Back
Janhvi Kapoor’s career trajectory after Dhadak was not a straight line upward. Several of her subsequent releases underperformed commercially, and the criticism continued.
But she kept working.
In 2024, she appeared in the Telugu action drama Devara: Part 1, which emerged as her first commercial success since Dhadak and the highest-grossing film of her career.
The following year, she earned unanimous critical acclaim for her supporting role in Homebound, which premiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. The Hollywood Reporter commended her for “demonstrating authenticity and the ability to deliver complex emotion.”
The actress who once believed audiences would never accept her has now earned recognition at one of cinema’s most prestigious global platforms. That journey — from depression after Dhadak to Cannes — is a significant one.
What This Tells Us About Bollywood’s Mental Health Culture
Janhvi Kapoor’s revelations are not just a personal story. They reflect something systemic about how the Indian film industry operates.
Actors, particularly new entrants, are expected to perform at full capacity regardless of what is happening in their personal lives. The promotional machinery runs on schedule. The reviews publish on time. The box office verdict arrives within days.
There is rarely a pause for grief.
What makes Janhvi’s account significant is its honesty. She is not reframing the past to look resilient. She is describing, plainly, that she was depressed — that the acclaim around Dhadak did not reach her because she was not in a place to receive it.
Mental health conversations in the entertainment industry have grown louder in recent years, but the pressure on debut actors — particularly those under the star kid microscope — remains intense. Janhvi Kapoor’s story is a reminder that box office numbers tell only part of the story.
Janhvi Kapoor’s candid account of depression following Dhadak offers a rare, unfiltered look at the emotional cost of a high-profile debut under impossible circumstances. She lost her mother, carried that grief through production, and then faced the world’s verdict with no safety net.
The fact that she is still in the industry — and now earning genuine critical praise — is a testament to resilience that no box office number can fully capture. As she continues to speak openly about mental health and personal loss, Janhvi Kapoor is reshaping how audiences understand the people behind the performances.
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