Meet actress, who was slammed for her dance moves, body shamed, almost packed bags, left films; later became 90s'...

Bollywood actress Sonali Bendre, also known as the 90s crush, still turns heads with her beauty. She was one of the most talented and gorgeous actresses in the 90s, who won everyone's hearts with her performances in films like Hum Saath - Saath Hain.

But do you she was once slammed for her dance moves? Yes! In one of her interviews, she revealed that she was slammed for her dance after which she almost packed her bags and left films. 

 

 

 

 

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Sonali Bendre said she was ready to quit the film industry if she didn't perform well in the song Humma Humma from Mani Ratnam's 1995 movie Bombay. At that time, she had only done five films and was often criticized by choreographers for her dance moves. Her breakthrough came when she danced to the hit song Humma Humma with Prabhu Deva's brother Raju Sundaram.

She explained that back then, people believed you couldn't be a leading actress if you didn't know how to dance. At 49 years old, she said she wanted to give dancing a try since the song was choreographed by the famous Prabhu Deva.

While speaking to PTI, she said, "I'm not a trained dancer. When I got into movies, I really got slammed by dance directors for my dancing. 'Badi heroine banne chali hai, dancing nahi aata'. So, if you couldn't dance, you couldn't be a heroine. I was going through all of that so whatever time I would get before and after the shoot, I started to train in 'Bollywood dancing', as it's called."

"This was more like, 'Let's do this'. This is with Prabhu Deva because if I can do it, I have a right to be here and if I can't do it, pack your bags and leave. At that point of time, it was like, '(At least) My team would earn their per-day (money)."

The actress recently revealed that she was body-shamed during the initial stage of her career, while speaking to Hauterrfly, she said, "When I came into the industry, heroines didn’t used to be this skinny. Every producer was trying to fatten me up all the time."

She also recalled how the producers were telling her, "eat eat eat, bahut patli hai". Sh added, "They wanted curves. At that time, they wanted women who were curvaceous and voluptuous and who had curls in their hair. And I was straight black hair and I was skinny."

Sonali Bendre featured in films like Diljale (1996), Major Saab (1998), Sarfarosh (1999), and Hum Saath Saath Hain (1999). She won the Screen Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai (2000). 

She also acted in Tamil movies like Kadhalar Dhinam(1999) and the Telugu movie Murari (2001), for which she was nominated for a Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Telugu. 

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