Zareen Khan says Body-Shaming started after Acting

Zareen Khan revealed that body-shaming only began after she started acting.

She said that she was never bullied for her weight before that, even when she weighed more than 100 kilograms in college.

Zareen made her debut in Salman Khan’s Veer in 2010.

In an interview, she revealed that she weighed more than 100 kilograms during her college days and no one bullied her.

However, once she entered films, she was subjected to body-shaming.

Zareen was also trolled when she posted a picture of herself showing off her weight loss stretch marks.

Opening up on body-shaming, Zareen said:

“The fact is, that I weighed more than 100kg when I was in school and college. But no one dared say anything to me.

“Whenever I heard that someone is fat and is being bullied, I used to think how can that be? ‘With the huge body, just give it back to them’.

“I have always been like this so I was never bullied.

“I only faced body-shaming when I entered the film industry. I could not understand.

“I thought ‘I did not face this when I was more than 100kg, and now that I am half the weight, they call me fat!’

“It was weird but did not affect me. I am an actor, judge me on my acting abilities, not my weight, colour, or height.

“But there are people in the film industry who go all out to say that body-shaming should not be done.

“However, when they make a film, they only want zero-sized girls for their movie.

“There is a lot of show-offs and double standards in our industry.”

After her 2010 debut, Zareen Khan was often compared with Katrina Kaif.

She previously said: “It was a very confusing phase for me because for Veer, I had to put on weight.

“The makers had asked me to put on weight because I was playing an 18th-century queen and they wanted to keep it authentic.

“That did not go down well, and I was fat-shamed. I was called ‘Fatrina’.”

On her comparisons to Katrina, Zareen elaborated:

“People come into the industry to create an identity for themselves and not to be someone else’s lookalike or shadow.

“I have struggled to make a place for myself in Bollywood for 11 years, but till date, people tag me as Katrina’s lookalike.

“No filmmaker wants to work with a lookalike or duplicate.”

Zareen revealed she was compared to other actresses as well.

“I think I have a universal face. I apparently look like a lot of people.

“Some call me Pooja Bhatt’s resemblance, some say Preity Zinta, some even state I am Sunny Leone’s lookalike.

“I don’t understand why don’t I ever look like Zareen Khan to people.”

On the work front, Zareen Khan was last seen in Hum Bhi Akele Tum Bhi Akele, which was released on Disney+Hotstar.