When Tanushree Dutta called Nana Patekar a 'Narcissistic Psychopath', said, "Nana thought his plan would lead to my death, but I survived"

When Tanushree Dutta called Nana Patekar a 'Narcissistic Psychopath', said, "Nana thought his plan would lead to my death, but I survived"

Tanushree Dutta, once a prominent face in Bollywood with films like Aashiq Banaya Aapne, Bhagam Bhag, and Dhol, sparked a significant moment in India’s #MeToo movement in 2018 when she accused veteran actor Nana Patekar of sexual harassment. Though Patekar denied the allegations, Tanushree never backed down and has often spoken out about her ordeal and the flawed mechanisms around justice and accountability in the industry.

In a powerful interview with News18, Tanushree slammed the Justice K Hema Committee report, calling it “baseless” and an exercise in futility. She questioned the relevance of such reports when justice remains undelivered for survivors. "What’s the point of this new report anyway? All they had to do was arrest the accused and enforce a strong law and order system. I remember hearing about the Vishakha Committee, which came up with so many guidelines and prepared pages and pages of reports, but what happened after that? The names of the committees just keep changing," she said.

The Justice K Hema Committee was constituted in 2017 in response to the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), following the sexual assault case involving a Malayalam actress, in which actor Dileep was accused. But Tanushree used this opportunity to draw a parallel between the alleged misconduct of Dileep and her own experience with Nana Patekar, labeling both actors as “narcissistic psychopaths”.

“People like Nana and Dileep are narcissistic psychopaths. There’s no cure for them. Only a vicious and vengeful man can do what they did. I don’t care about these committees. I have no trust in this system,” she said, her frustration evident. She emphasized that real change is not happening and accused the system of wasting time and resources while failing to protect women. “It feels like with these reports and committees, they’re just wasting our time rather than doing the real work. Having a safe workplace is a basic right for a woman — or any human being, for that matter.”

Nana Patekar, for his part, has dismissed all allegations made by Tanushree and has even called her a liar. Responding to this in a past interview with Zoom, Tanushree shared a disturbing anecdote about Patekar slapping a young man from Varanasi during a shoot. “He slapped the boy and made it look like part of the shoot, then apologized later. He does these things and gets away with them,” she claimed. She also recounted how actress Dimple Kapadia once described Patekar as “obnoxious”, and added that mistreatment of women seemed like a routine affair for him.

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When asked whether she regretted working with Nana Patekar, Tanushree reflected, “I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. The only regret I have is that I worked with someone who was professionally over.”

"Nana probably thought his plan would lead to my demise, but I survived. Now he's scared, and his support in Bollywood has dwindled. Many of his supporters are either bankrupt, have lost their status, or have distanced themselves from him. People can now see through his manipulations, and as a result, he's resorting to another major gaslighting," Dutta added.