India's highest-paid item girl earns Rs 5 crore a song, more than heroines' full fees; not Malaika, Nora, Katrina, Sunny

Item song, the word, is a relatively recent concept, having gained popularity only in the last 20 years or so. But even before this word came into prevalence, special dance numbers were a rage in Indian films. Actresses like Helen and Silk Smitha owe their careers to the concept. Over the years, the women performing these songs have come to be referred as ‘item girls’. While earlier only dancers would do these numbers, today even mainstream actresses perform these special songs. This has meant that their fees have skyrocketed and this one ‘item girl’ now gets paid more than many lead actresses.

India’s highest-paid item girl is...

Many dancers and actresses charge in excess of Rs 1 crore per song these days. But for her five-minute appearance in Pushpa The Rise’s Oo Antava, south superstar Samantha Ruth Prabhu took home an astonishing fees of Rs 5 crore. This type of money has not been charged by any actress in Indian cinema, just for one song. Other top-paid actresses for item songs are Nora Fatehi and Sunny Leone, both of whom reportedly charge Rs 2 crore per song. Malaika Arora, once the queen of Bollywood item songs, charges between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore today.

How Samantha’s fees for one song is more than heroines’ full film fees

The strange thing is that Rashmika Mandanna, the lead actress of the film, charged less for her total appearance in the film. Rashmika took home just Rs 2 crore for her role as Srivalli in Pushpa The Rise. Other popular actresses like Janhvi Kapoor, Tamannaah Bhatia, and Pooja Hegde, all charge less than Rs 5 crore per film, an amount Samantha earned for doing just one song.

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